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Not Safe For Work! Spurty's Newsround
- Thread starter SpurtingLesbian
- Start date
- Status
SpurtingLesbian
Ken Dodd Nagasaki
Raccoon climbs 700-foot-tall Toronto crane, poops at the top
BY VANCITY BUZZ STAFF
If you thought Vancouver had the most rebellious raccoons in the country, you could be wrong.
A raccoon with no fears of heights is famous on social media after it climbed a 700-foot-tall (213 metre) construction crane on Yonge Street near the Air Canada Centre in downtown Toronto.
On Thursday morning, crane operator Robert MacFarlane captured photos of the urbanized critter climbing up the ladder towards where he was positioned.
But before making its way down, MacFarlane tweeted that the raccoon also defecated at the top of the crane. The animal managed to reach the ground safely.
The photos were posted onto his Twitter and Instagram accounts and have now gone viral.
This comes after the City of Toronto’s recent announcement that it will be rolling out a new raccoon-proofed garbage bin design to reduce incidents of knocked over bins and spilled trash.
BY VANCITY BUZZ STAFF
If you thought Vancouver had the most rebellious raccoons in the country, you could be wrong.
A raccoon with no fears of heights is famous on social media after it climbed a 700-foot-tall (213 metre) construction crane on Yonge Street near the Air Canada Centre in downtown Toronto.
On Thursday morning, crane operator Robert MacFarlane captured photos of the urbanized critter climbing up the ladder towards where he was positioned.
But before making its way down, MacFarlane tweeted that the raccoon also defecated at the top of the crane. The animal managed to reach the ground safely.
The photos were posted onto his Twitter and Instagram accounts and have now gone viral.
This comes after the City of Toronto’s recent announcement that it will be rolling out a new raccoon-proofed garbage bin design to reduce incidents of knocked over bins and spilled trash.
Donald Twain
Vide cor meum
These are the amazing things you can do in Japan on Cat Day
Image copyright
Are you a cat person? If so, Japan is the place to be on 22 February because this is when Cat Day is celebrated.
Now in its 30th year, Cat Day has lit up Japanese social media with endless portraits of ...cats as well as cat-themed doughnuts, cat-shaped biscuits, cat manga, cats staring soulfully out of windows, kittens mewing expectantly and so on. On this day it is Japan's hugest trend on social media.
What happens on Cat Day?
Known as "Neko no Hi", it was chosen because the date's numerals, 2/22 (ni ni ni), are pronounced fairly closely to the sound a cat makes in Japan (nyan nyan nyan).
You can play tricks on your cat
Image copyright Twitter / @RitzChan_
Image caption This Twitter user pranked a sleeping pet cat which woke up to find itself buried under an avalanche of toy mice
Image copyright Twitter / @HirokiAsai_0201
Image caption Another user felt the need to get close to his pet on Cat Day
You can dress up as a cat
Image copyright Twitter / @yancoromarch
Image caption One famous cosplayer who donned cat ears was Yancoromarch
Enthusiasts of cosplay, the art of dressing up like animated characters, posted pictures of themselves dressed as cats, or wearing "nekomimi" (cat's ears).
You can make food look like cats
Image copyright Twitter / @_HO_TA_TE_
Image caption Some have celebrated by making cat-shaped food, like rice balls
You can monetise cats
Over the years the day has become a commercial success, with shops and businesses releasing cat-themed items.
Image copyright Twitter / @ikumi_mama
Image caption Ikumi Mama, a bakery known for producing animal-shaped pastries, released a special set of cat doughnuts
Image copyright Twitter / @nekokeizai
Image caption Kaldi Coffee Farm, which sells coffee and imported foods, released a special cat-themed bag for the day, including tea, biscuits and a calendar
Disney in Japan declared the day to be "Marie Day," after the young female character from the Aristocats, while newspaper Asahi Shimbun marked the occasion with a special report from one of Japan's cat cafes, where you can sit for an hour or two in the company of numerous pampered and purring moggies.
Image copyright Twitter/ @bonjour_licca
Image caption Japan's answer to Barbie, Licca-chan, added her take on the day with a catty outfit
How did it start?
The event began in 1987 after an Executive Cat Day Committee polled cat-lovers across Japan and decided that February 22 should be Cat Day.
Other countries also have days to
- 2 hours ago
- From the section Asia
Are you a cat person? If so, Japan is the place to be on 22 February because this is when Cat Day is celebrated.
Now in its 30th year, Cat Day has lit up Japanese social media with endless portraits of ...cats as well as cat-themed doughnuts, cat-shaped biscuits, cat manga, cats staring soulfully out of windows, kittens mewing expectantly and so on. On this day it is Japan's hugest trend on social media.
What happens on Cat Day?
Known as "Neko no Hi", it was chosen because the date's numerals, 2/22 (ni ni ni), are pronounced fairly closely to the sound a cat makes in Japan (nyan nyan nyan).
You can play tricks on your cat
Image caption This Twitter user pranked a sleeping pet cat which woke up to find itself buried under an avalanche of toy mice
Image caption Another user felt the need to get close to his pet on Cat Day
You can dress up as a cat
Image caption One famous cosplayer who donned cat ears was Yancoromarch
Enthusiasts of cosplay, the art of dressing up like animated characters, posted pictures of themselves dressed as cats, or wearing "nekomimi" (cat's ears).
You can make food look like cats
Image caption Some have celebrated by making cat-shaped food, like rice balls
You can monetise cats
Over the years the day has become a commercial success, with shops and businesses releasing cat-themed items.
Image caption Ikumi Mama, a bakery known for producing animal-shaped pastries, released a special set of cat doughnuts
Image caption Kaldi Coffee Farm, which sells coffee and imported foods, released a special cat-themed bag for the day, including tea, biscuits and a calendar
Disney in Japan declared the day to be "Marie Day," after the young female character from the Aristocats, while newspaper Asahi Shimbun marked the occasion with a special report from one of Japan's cat cafes, where you can sit for an hour or two in the company of numerous pampered and purring moggies.
Image caption Japan's answer to Barbie, Licca-chan, added her take on the day with a catty outfit
How did it start?
The event began in 1987 after an Executive Cat Day Committee polled cat-lovers across Japan and decided that February 22 should be Cat Day.
Other countries also have days to
SpurtingLesbian
Ken Dodd Nagasaki
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...bone-sawing-surgery-10902801#comments-section
Lembit Opik has bone sawing surgery to fix his 'wonky' face
The 50 year old from Montgomeryshire went under the knife for five-hours on January 26
Former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik has undergone a painful bone sawing operation in a bid to straighten his “wonky face”.
The 50 year old from Montgomeryshire went under the knife for five-hours on January 26.
Opik has always suffered from had a slightly asymmetrical jaw which was made much worse after a paragliding accident in 1998.
Shortly after being elected as an MP he shattered his knees, four ribs, his sternum, his jaw and broke his back in 12 places, after falling from 80ft while paragliding.
'Extremely painful'
He said: “It was an enormous operation, doctors had to cut off my jaw, move it 14mm to the left and re-position it all.
“It’s been extremely painful but for me there wasn’t even a choice for the realignment surgery, it had to be done for my health.”
The operation, he stresses, was performed for medical rather than cosmetic reasons, to protect his teeth and help him eat properly.
The worsening condition had stopped him eating certain foods such as red meat for years.
'No laughing matter'
“Anyone who has an asymetrical face should take this operation seriously,” he said.
“I’m lucky that I had medical reasons to have it done and it was a necessity, but I know how hard life can be with a wonky face, especially if you’re a teenager.
“So many people live with insecurities and uncertainties about the way they look, so my advice to people with an asymmetrical face would be to speak to a doctor and think about this operation as an option.”
It will take two months for the jaw to heal and he will have to endure at least one more operation in the future.
He added: “Having a wonky face isn’t funny, it isn’t easy, and it’s painful”.
Lembit Opik has bone sawing surgery to fix his 'wonky' face
- 22:38, 16 FEB 2016
- UPDATED 22:38, 16 FEB 2016
- BY MILLIE THWAITES
The 50 year old from Montgomeryshire went under the knife for five-hours on January 26
Former Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik has undergone a painful bone sawing operation in a bid to straighten his “wonky face”.
The 50 year old from Montgomeryshire went under the knife for five-hours on January 26.
Opik has always suffered from had a slightly asymmetrical jaw which was made much worse after a paragliding accident in 1998.
Shortly after being elected as an MP he shattered his knees, four ribs, his sternum, his jaw and broke his back in 12 places, after falling from 80ft while paragliding.
'Extremely painful'
He said: “It was an enormous operation, doctors had to cut off my jaw, move it 14mm to the left and re-position it all.
“It’s been extremely painful but for me there wasn’t even a choice for the realignment surgery, it had to be done for my health.”
The operation, he stresses, was performed for medical rather than cosmetic reasons, to protect his teeth and help him eat properly.
The worsening condition had stopped him eating certain foods such as red meat for years.
'No laughing matter'
“Anyone who has an asymetrical face should take this operation seriously,” he said.
“I’m lucky that I had medical reasons to have it done and it was a necessity, but I know how hard life can be with a wonky face, especially if you’re a teenager.
“So many people live with insecurities and uncertainties about the way they look, so my advice to people with an asymmetrical face would be to speak to a doctor and think about this operation as an option.”
It will take two months for the jaw to heal and he will have to endure at least one more operation in the future.
He added: “Having a wonky face isn’t funny, it isn’t easy, and it’s painful”.
SpurtingLesbian
Ken Dodd Nagasaki
**TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP
http://www.wigantoday.net/news/local/terrified-horses-roaming-around-1-7740422#ixzz40vIGpUJp
Terrified horses roaming around
Horses are causing a nuisance by roaming around free in several parts of the borough.
The bedraggled animals have been spotted grazing in Bexhill Drive, Polegate Drive, Hindley Green, the Shell garage and Leyland Park, Hindley, causing alarm to residents.
We are currently working on a plan which would allow us to tackle this and take action quicker. Horse owners need to recognise the dangers that loose horses create and act responsibly to control them
Penny McGinty
Although the horses are now believed to be secure, locals have expressed concern for the horses’ safety on social media,
Gemma Morgan posted on Facebook: “Does anyone know who these horses belong to? They are very frightened and knocking fences down. They are going to end up getting hurt.”
Kelly Haydock posted: “They look shattered, poor things. They are going to get hurt, if not by a car then by gangs of kids out all night.”
Another reader said: “There is manure everywhere.
“Surely someone should be held accountable and made to clean it.”
A spokesman for Wigan Council said it was working on removing the horses and warned that owners should act more responsibly to protect animals and the public.
Penny McGinty, assistant director for leisure and property, said: “We are aware of horse fly-grazing taking place across the borough and will take action to remove horses from council land.
“We are currently working on a plan which would allow us to tackle this and take action quicker. Horse owners need to recognise the dangers that loose horses create and act responsibly to control them.”
Only a few weeks ago, the Evening Post reported that two horses had wandered on to Gibson Street and Bickershaw Lane, Bickershaw, causing motorists to swerve to avoid a collision.
A horse owner is liable in common law for any damage which is caused by a horse he owns where it is due to the owner’s own negligence.
A horse owner can also be liable in the tort of nuisance where he allows horses to escape onto his neighbour’s property.
For example, if a horse owner fails to keep his horses properly secured and allows them to roam freely, the owner will be responsible if the horses enter his neighbour’s land and cause damage to the property.
**TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP SPURTY WOOL NEWS****TOP
Whistlin' Dixie
Player Valuation: £50m
Well, it is Wigan, ffs....
I fffffing love Spurtys Newsround............. from day 1 ..... I said this thread had legs.It's my guilty pleasure...........when she is Victor KIAMING HER LEGS.
USABlue
Player Valuation: £70m
surprised this hasn't made it's way to GOT yet, has GOT alehouse thread written all over it....unless people were waiting for the night shift....
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/adolf-hitler-right-testicle-micropenis-a6889256.html
A historian has urged caution over claims that Adolf Hitler had a micropenis.
In a book published last year called Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute, two historians - Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie - claimed the German dictator suffered from a condition that can lead to several complications with the penis - one of means the man has a "micropenis".
On Monday, the claim resurfaced and was picked up by media outlets around the world.
However, in an email interview with The Independent, Ms Craigie urged caution surrounding the reports, saying that any suggestion he had a micro-penis because he potentially suffered from hypospadias was a "leap" and that she had not seen any evidence to suggest anything more than general hypospadias.
The condition - which is believed to occur in 1 in 300 men - is a birth defect which means the urethra forms at the bottom of the shaft or the base of the penis rather than the tip.
This means more of the penis is fused to the body, meaning in some instances it can appear smaller.
Ms Craigie and Mr Mayo write in their booke: "Hitler himself is believed to have had two forms of genital abnormality: an undescended testicle and a rare condition called penile hypospadias in which the urethra opens on the underside of the penis."
Hitler's personal doctor, Dr Theodor Morell, is believed to have noted Hitler’s hypospasdias and given him hormones, amphetamines and cocaine to boost his sex drive.
Adolf Hitler only had one testicle, German historian claims
German historian, Volker Ulrich, has previously claimed he uncovered prison records showing Hitler did have had an undescended right testicle - confirming rumours which have circulated since the Second World War.
The records, made by medical officer Dr Josef Steiner Brin when Hitler was briefly jailed for a failed coup in 1923, said that he had "right-sided cryptorchidism" but was otherwise "healthy" and "strong".
Cryptorchidism is caused by a testicle not descending into the scrotum during puberty.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/adolf-hitler-right-testicle-micropenis-a6889256.html
A historian has urged caution over claims that Adolf Hitler had a micropenis.
In a book published last year called Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute, two historians - Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie - claimed the German dictator suffered from a condition that can lead to several complications with the penis - one of means the man has a "micropenis".
On Monday, the claim resurfaced and was picked up by media outlets around the world.
However, in an email interview with The Independent, Ms Craigie urged caution surrounding the reports, saying that any suggestion he had a micro-penis because he potentially suffered from hypospadias was a "leap" and that she had not seen any evidence to suggest anything more than general hypospadias.
The condition - which is believed to occur in 1 in 300 men - is a birth defect which means the urethra forms at the bottom of the shaft or the base of the penis rather than the tip.
This means more of the penis is fused to the body, meaning in some instances it can appear smaller.
Ms Craigie and Mr Mayo write in their booke: "Hitler himself is believed to have had two forms of genital abnormality: an undescended testicle and a rare condition called penile hypospadias in which the urethra opens on the underside of the penis."
Hitler's personal doctor, Dr Theodor Morell, is believed to have noted Hitler’s hypospasdias and given him hormones, amphetamines and cocaine to boost his sex drive.
Adolf Hitler only had one testicle, German historian claims
German historian, Volker Ulrich, has previously claimed he uncovered prison records showing Hitler did have had an undescended right testicle - confirming rumours which have circulated since the Second World War.
The records, made by medical officer Dr Josef Steiner Brin when Hitler was briefly jailed for a failed coup in 1923, said that he had "right-sided cryptorchidism" but was otherwise "healthy" and "strong".
Cryptorchidism is caused by a testicle not descending into the scrotum during puberty.
SpurtingLesbian
Ken Dodd Nagasaki
that would have been one for Spurty's Newsround that. 
USABlue
Player Valuation: £70m
can be merged if mod's prefer!! just thought it should be bought to GOT's attentionthat would have been one for Spurty's Newsround that.
SpurtingLesbian
Ken Dodd Nagasaki
Why are Sheffield’s social housing tenants being attacked by angry ghosts?
By Richard Wallace
Just another Saturday night in Sheffield. Okay, this is Elsinore, and the artist is Robert Dudley.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but when I was a kid, my dad was in the local am-drams. After the final pantomime performance of the year, the stage-hands would stay late dismantling the set, and around midnight, so it was regularly claimed, they would hear unexplained bumps and rattling chains from backstage. The local amphitheatre was called The Priory Centre and it was allegedly built on an ancient monastery, and according to local legend that caused ghosts to appear, for some reason.
In seven or so consecutive years of helping to paint the sets and watch the performances, the most distressing supernatural occurrence I ever saw there was the St. Neots Vamps’ production of Blithe Spirit. But scepticism aside, those stagehands are far from the only reporters of ghoulish appearances in urban areas across the UK.
Sheffield, an area more famous for spawning the Arctic Monkeys than a terrifying army of spectres, is apparently a hotbed of paranormal activity. More bafflingly, most of this appears to be concentrated around Sheffield’s social housing stock.
InsideHousing, the UK social housing industry magazine, reported in late 2013 that, since 2003, Sheffield Council had seen a disproportionate number of complaints from tenants that their homes were being haunted. Sure, other associations received them too – but the sheer volume of Sheffield’s alleged visitations during that ten-year period is a mystery of X-Files-series-three proportions. (In case you were wondering, tenants’ beliefs in the spectral afterlife are treated seriously by most social landlords; Easington Council even paid an exorcist £60 to rid one County Durham resident of a poltergeist.)
So what’s the deal? I’m sure many skeptics would be quick to suggest that the reports indicate nothing more than attempts to exploit councils and housing associations in the hope of upgrades to larger properties. But while different counties do have their own rules regarding transfers, overcrowded social properties and large register sizes are hardly unique to Sheffield, which received 47 separate reports over the ten years.
Relative to the rest of the country, that’s a huge number – unless other social landlords regularly receive hauntings without bothering to write it down, 64 per cent of all UK social housing hauntings in that ten-year period happened in Sheffield.
By contrast, Thames Valley Housing managed a paltry one haunting. Gentoo Housing, which is based in Sunderland, reported the next highest number of hauntings after Sheffield – just four, one reported haunting every two and a half years. Sheffield Council got one such report roughly every two to three months.
Mid Devon Council managed a paltry two reports of spooky goings-on. That’s surprising since, if stick a pin into a map of Devon, you’ll likely hit the site of an alleged haunting, usually involving a smuggler. The unassuming village of Lapford is particularly busy, variously patrolled by the ghosts of a star-crossed couple, a murderous vicar with "a look of angry disdain upon his face", former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, and a spooky dog.
Mid Devon is, to be fair, an eighth of the size of the Sheffield urban area, but even proportionally speaking there are three times as many reports in Sheffield as in ghost-studded Mid Devon. Either there’s more to this, or the people of Mid Devon are so used to malign apparitions they’ve given up reporting them to their landlords.
There are other explanations, such mental illness and religious beliefs, but neither are sufficiently widespread, nor especially localised in Yorkshire. Nor are either constants in every report: one Curo Housing tenant had neither illness nor faith, but did complain to his landlord that an apparition “regularly walked through the walls when he was trying to watch Match of the Day”.
Here’s a grab of InsideHousing’s report:
Look at that chart and tell me we’re not deeply in Scooby Doo territory here. Is some Shining-esque historical reason to blame? What about Sheffield’s particular steel-industrial history might lend itself to increased chances of apparitions?
If you believe in the usual tropes of the genre, one factor may be that much of Sheffield’s social housing, including the infamous Park Hill estate, was built on the site of former slums, many impoverished and blighted by crime. Many of these areas were ignominiously demolished during slum clearances in the 1930s.
During the war, buildings in many of these areas suffered yet more damage – take, for example, St. Vincent’s Parish, a slum whose immigrant population had ties to prominent members of Sheffield Gang Wars, and whose church was directly hit by bombing raids. The air raids of the Sheffield Blitz, targeting the city’s industrial production capabilities, were devastating to the entire city, killing 660 people and damaging nearly 80,000 homes.
This explanation is fits neatly with ghostly lore; as my trusted stagehand sources attest, building on top of certain historical sites is a sure-fire recipe for spirits.
And Sheffield is no stranger to calamity: adding to the possible list of restless souls, the city endured the deadly Sheffield Floods in 1864, a disaster which killed 220 people, enough to create an escadrille of ghosts. Some 800 houses were also destroyed, which may explain the ghosts’ heavy concentration around the social housing sector.
This isn’t particular to Sheffield either: the Morpeth floods in 2008 damaged 900 houses, but hey, Morpeth is supposedly haunted too. I think we’re getting warm here. And by warm I mean marrow-chillingly cold.
Ultimately there’s no real way of knowing what lies behind this bizarre discrepancy. Like ghost-sightings themselves, there’s probably a very simple explanation for the mystery.
But one thing stands out: as InsideHousing reports, housing officers themselves often agreed with the tenants that malign presences were lingering; one even fled after witnessing a rope seeming to float in the doorway, Poltergeist-style.
Despite what we may think, the British are generally quite superstitious: according to YouGov, one in three of us believe in ghosts, with just less than that claiming to have personally felt some kind of presence.
The power of suggestion is always a strong possibility in ghost sightings: perhaps what makes Sheffield unique is a tendency for its inhabitants to have a deeper than usual connection own storied history, giving susceptible hauntees a rich wellspring of local apocrypha to ascribe to everyday mysteries.
That, or Sheffield is just really, really haunted.
By Richard Wallace
Just another Saturday night in Sheffield. Okay, this is Elsinore, and the artist is Robert Dudley.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but when I was a kid, my dad was in the local am-drams. After the final pantomime performance of the year, the stage-hands would stay late dismantling the set, and around midnight, so it was regularly claimed, they would hear unexplained bumps and rattling chains from backstage. The local amphitheatre was called The Priory Centre and it was allegedly built on an ancient monastery, and according to local legend that caused ghosts to appear, for some reason.
In seven or so consecutive years of helping to paint the sets and watch the performances, the most distressing supernatural occurrence I ever saw there was the St. Neots Vamps’ production of Blithe Spirit. But scepticism aside, those stagehands are far from the only reporters of ghoulish appearances in urban areas across the UK.
Sheffield, an area more famous for spawning the Arctic Monkeys than a terrifying army of spectres, is apparently a hotbed of paranormal activity. More bafflingly, most of this appears to be concentrated around Sheffield’s social housing stock.
InsideHousing, the UK social housing industry magazine, reported in late 2013 that, since 2003, Sheffield Council had seen a disproportionate number of complaints from tenants that their homes were being haunted. Sure, other associations received them too – but the sheer volume of Sheffield’s alleged visitations during that ten-year period is a mystery of X-Files-series-three proportions. (In case you were wondering, tenants’ beliefs in the spectral afterlife are treated seriously by most social landlords; Easington Council even paid an exorcist £60 to rid one County Durham resident of a poltergeist.)
So what’s the deal? I’m sure many skeptics would be quick to suggest that the reports indicate nothing more than attempts to exploit councils and housing associations in the hope of upgrades to larger properties. But while different counties do have their own rules regarding transfers, overcrowded social properties and large register sizes are hardly unique to Sheffield, which received 47 separate reports over the ten years.
Relative to the rest of the country, that’s a huge number – unless other social landlords regularly receive hauntings without bothering to write it down, 64 per cent of all UK social housing hauntings in that ten-year period happened in Sheffield.
By contrast, Thames Valley Housing managed a paltry one haunting. Gentoo Housing, which is based in Sunderland, reported the next highest number of hauntings after Sheffield – just four, one reported haunting every two and a half years. Sheffield Council got one such report roughly every two to three months.
Mid Devon Council managed a paltry two reports of spooky goings-on. That’s surprising since, if stick a pin into a map of Devon, you’ll likely hit the site of an alleged haunting, usually involving a smuggler. The unassuming village of Lapford is particularly busy, variously patrolled by the ghosts of a star-crossed couple, a murderous vicar with "a look of angry disdain upon his face", former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, and a spooky dog.
Mid Devon is, to be fair, an eighth of the size of the Sheffield urban area, but even proportionally speaking there are three times as many reports in Sheffield as in ghost-studded Mid Devon. Either there’s more to this, or the people of Mid Devon are so used to malign apparitions they’ve given up reporting them to their landlords.
There are other explanations, such mental illness and religious beliefs, but neither are sufficiently widespread, nor especially localised in Yorkshire. Nor are either constants in every report: one Curo Housing tenant had neither illness nor faith, but did complain to his landlord that an apparition “regularly walked through the walls when he was trying to watch Match of the Day”.
Here’s a grab of InsideHousing’s report:
Look at that chart and tell me we’re not deeply in Scooby Doo territory here. Is some Shining-esque historical reason to blame? What about Sheffield’s particular steel-industrial history might lend itself to increased chances of apparitions?
If you believe in the usual tropes of the genre, one factor may be that much of Sheffield’s social housing, including the infamous Park Hill estate, was built on the site of former slums, many impoverished and blighted by crime. Many of these areas were ignominiously demolished during slum clearances in the 1930s.
During the war, buildings in many of these areas suffered yet more damage – take, for example, St. Vincent’s Parish, a slum whose immigrant population had ties to prominent members of Sheffield Gang Wars, and whose church was directly hit by bombing raids. The air raids of the Sheffield Blitz, targeting the city’s industrial production capabilities, were devastating to the entire city, killing 660 people and damaging nearly 80,000 homes.
This explanation is fits neatly with ghostly lore; as my trusted stagehand sources attest, building on top of certain historical sites is a sure-fire recipe for spirits.
And Sheffield is no stranger to calamity: adding to the possible list of restless souls, the city endured the deadly Sheffield Floods in 1864, a disaster which killed 220 people, enough to create an escadrille of ghosts. Some 800 houses were also destroyed, which may explain the ghosts’ heavy concentration around the social housing sector.
This isn’t particular to Sheffield either: the Morpeth floods in 2008 damaged 900 houses, but hey, Morpeth is supposedly haunted too. I think we’re getting warm here. And by warm I mean marrow-chillingly cold.
Ultimately there’s no real way of knowing what lies behind this bizarre discrepancy. Like ghost-sightings themselves, there’s probably a very simple explanation for the mystery.
But one thing stands out: as InsideHousing reports, housing officers themselves often agreed with the tenants that malign presences were lingering; one even fled after witnessing a rope seeming to float in the doorway, Poltergeist-style.
Despite what we may think, the British are generally quite superstitious: according to YouGov, one in three of us believe in ghosts, with just less than that claiming to have personally felt some kind of presence.
The power of suggestion is always a strong possibility in ghost sightings: perhaps what makes Sheffield unique is a tendency for its inhabitants to have a deeper than usual connection own storied history, giving susceptible hauntees a rich wellspring of local apocrypha to ascribe to everyday mysteries.
That, or Sheffield is just really, really haunted.
Donald Twain
Vide cor meum
Put the willies up me, arf arf!Why are Sheffield’s social housing tenants being attacked by angry ghosts?
By Rich
Just another Saturday night in Sheffield. Okay, this is Elsinore, and the artist is Robert Dudley.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but when I was a kid, my dad was in the local am-drams. After the final pantomime performance of the year, the stage-hands would stay late dismantling the set, and around midnight, so it was regularly claimed, they would hear unexplained bumps and rattling chains from backstage. The local amphitheatre was called The Priory Centre and it was allegedly built on an ancient monastery, and according to local legend that caused ghosts to appear, for some reason.
In seven or so consecutive years of helping to paint the sets and watch the performances, the most distressing supernatural occurrence I ever saw there was the St. Neots Vamps’ production of Blithe Spirit. But scepticism aside, those stagehands are far from the only reporters of ghoulish appearances in urban areas across the UK.
Sheffield, an area more famous for spawning the Arctic Monkeys than a terrifying army of spectres, is apparently a hotbed of paranormal activity. More bafflingly, most of this appears to be concentrated around Sheffield’s social housing stock.
InsideHousing, the UK social housing industry magazine, reported in late 2013 that, since 2003, Sheffield Council had seen a disproportionate number of complaints from tenants that their homes were being haunted. Sure, other associations received them too – but the sheer volume of Sheffield’s alleged visitations during that ten-year period is a mystery of X-Files-series-three proportions. (In case you were wondering, tenants’ beliefs in the spectral afterlife are treated seriously by most social landlords; Easington Council even paid an exorcist £60 to rid one County Durham resident of a poltergeist.)
So what’s the deal? I’m sure many skeptics would be quick to suggest that the reports indicate nothing more than attempts to exploit councils and housing associations in the hope of upgrades to larger properties. But while different counties do have their own rules regarding transfers, overcrowded social properties and large register sizes are hardly unique to Sheffield, which received 47 separate reports over the ten years.
Relative to the rest of the country, that’s a huge number – unless other social landlords regularly receive hauntings without bothering to write it down, 64 per cent of all UK social housing hauntings in that ten-year period happened in Sheffield.
By contrast, Thames Valley Housing managed a paltry one haunting. Gentoo Housing, which is based in Sunderland, reported the next highest number of hauntings after Sheffield – just four, one reported haunting every two and a half years. Sheffield Council got one such report roughly every two to three months.
Mid Devon Council managed a paltry two reports of spooky goings-on. That’s surprising since, if stick a pin into a map of Devon, you’ll likely hit the site of an alleged haunting, usually involving a smuggler. The unassuming village of Lapford is particularly busy, variously patrolled by the ghosts of a star-crossed couple, a murderous vicar with "a look of angry disdain upon his face", former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, and a spooky dog.
Mid Devon is, to be fair, an eighth of the size of the Sheffield urban area, but even proportionally speaking there are three times as many reports in Sheffield as in ghost-studded Mid Devon. Either there’s more to this, or the people of Mid Devon are so used to malign apparitions they’ve given up reporting them to their landlords.
There are other explanations, such mental illness and religious beliefs, but neither are sufficiently widespread, nor especially localised in Yorkshire. Nor are either constants in every report: one Curo Housing tenant had neither illness nor faith, but did complain to his landlord that an apparition “regularly walked through the walls when he was trying to watch Match of the Day”.
Here’s a grab of InsideHousing’s report:
Look at that chart and tell me we’re not deeply in Scooby Doo territory here. Is some Shining-esque historical reason to blame? What about Sheffield’s particular steel-industrial history might lend itself to increased chances of apparitions?
If you believe in the usual tropes of the genre, one factor may be that much of Sheffield’s social housing, including the infamous Park Hill estate, was built on the site of former slums, many impoverished and blighted by crime. Many of these areas were ignominiously demolished during slum clearances in the 1930s.
During the war, buildings in many of these areas suffered yet more damage – take, for example, St. Vincent’s Parish, a slum whose immigrant population had ties to prominent members of Sheffield Gang Wars, and whose church was directly hit by bombing raids. The air raids of the Sheffield Blitz, targeting the city’s industrial production capabilities, were devastating to the entire city, killing 660 people and damaging nearly 80,000 homes.
This explanation is fits neatly with ghostly lore; as my trusted stagehand sources attest, building on top of certain historical sites is a sure-fire recipe for spirits.
And Sheffield is no stranger to calamity: adding to the possible list of restless souls, the city endured the deadly Sheffield Floods in 1864, a disaster which killed 220 people, enough to create an escadrille of ghosts. Some 800 houses were also destroyed, which may explain the ghosts’ heavy concentration around the social housing sector.
This isn’t particular to Sheffield either: the Morpeth floods in 2008 damaged 900 houses, but hey, Morpeth is supposedly haunted too. I think we’re getting warm here. And by warm I mean marrow-chillingly cold.
Ultimately there’s no real way of knowing what lies behind this bizarre discrepancy. Like ghost-sightings themselves, there’s probably a very simple explanation for the mystery.
But one thing stands out: as InsideHousing reports, housing officers themselves often agreed with the tenants that malign presences were lingering; one even fled after witnessing a rope seeming to float in the doorway, Poltergeist-style.
Despite what we may think, the British are generally quite superstitious: according to YouGov, one in three of us believe in ghosts, with just less than that claiming to have personally felt some kind of presence.
The power of suggestion is always a strong possibility in ghost sightings: perhaps what makes Sheffield unique is a tendency for its inhabitants to have a deeper than usual connection own storied history, giving susceptible hauntees a rich wellspring of local apocrypha to ascribe to everyday mysteries.
That, or Sheffield is just really, really haunted.
Donald Twain
Vide cor meum
BA flight forced to land early because of smelly poo
BBC NEWS 2016
A British Airways flight was forced to turn around because of a "smelly poo".
The plane was heading from Heathrow to Dubai on Thursday - a seven-hour flight.
Abhishek Sachdev, who was on board tweeted: "Insane. Our BA flight to Dubai returned back to Heathrow because of a smelly poo in the toilet."
He told a newspaper: "The pilot made an announcement requesting senior cabin crew, and we knew something was a bit odd.
"About 10 minutes later he said 'you may have noticed there's a quite pungent smell coming from one of the toilets'.
"He said it was liquid faecal excrement. Those are the words he used."
The plane had been airborne for just 30 minutes when it turned round.
The next available flight was 15 hours later, so passengers had to be put up in a hotel overnight.
Speaking to Radio 1's Greg James, Sarah, who works for the airline said: "When you're up at that altitude the cabin has to be pressurised so the problem is that anything like that is actually a health and safety problem because only 50 percent of the air is being recycled and cleaned."
In a statement, BA said: "A decision was taken to return for the safety and comfort of our customers on board.
"We're very sorry for the discomfort to our customers.
"We provided them with hotel accommodation and rescheduled the flight to depart the next day."
BBC NEWS 2016
A British Airways flight was forced to turn around because of a "smelly poo".
The plane was heading from Heathrow to Dubai on Thursday - a seven-hour flight.
Abhishek Sachdev, who was on board tweeted: "Insane. Our BA flight to Dubai returned back to Heathrow because of a smelly poo in the toilet."
He told a newspaper: "The pilot made an announcement requesting senior cabin crew, and we knew something was a bit odd.
"About 10 minutes later he said 'you may have noticed there's a quite pungent smell coming from one of the toilets'.
"He said it was liquid faecal excrement. Those are the words he used."
The plane had been airborne for just 30 minutes when it turned round.
The next available flight was 15 hours later, so passengers had to be put up in a hotel overnight.
Speaking to Radio 1's Greg James, Sarah, who works for the airline said: "When you're up at that altitude the cabin has to be pressurised so the problem is that anything like that is actually a health and safety problem because only 50 percent of the air is being recycled and cleaned."
In a statement, BA said: "A decision was taken to return for the safety and comfort of our customers on board.
"We're very sorry for the discomfort to our customers.
"We provided them with hotel accommodation and rescheduled the flight to depart the next day."
SpurtingLesbian
Ken Dodd Nagasaki
lollollollollollolBA flight forced to land early because of smelly poo
BBC NEWS 2016
A British Airways flight was forced to turn around because of a "smelly poo".
The plane was heading from Heathrow to Dubai on Thursday - a seven-hour flight.
Abhishek Sachdev, who was on board tweeted: "Insane. Our BA flight to Dubai returned back to Heathrow because of a smelly poo in the toilet."
He told a newspaper: "The pilot made an announcement requesting senior cabin crew, and we knew something was a bit odd.
"About 10 minutes later he said 'you may have noticed there's a quite pungent smell coming from one of the toilets'.
"He said it was liquid faecal excrement. Those are the words he used."
The plane had been airborne for just 30 minutes when it turned round.
The next available flight was 15 hours later, so passengers had to be put up in a hotel overnight.
Speaking to Radio 1's Greg James, Sarah, who works for the airline said: "When you're up at that altitude the cabin has to be pressurised so the problem is that anything like that is actually a health and safety problem because only 50 percent of the air is being recycled and cleaned."
In a statement, BA said: "A decision was taken to return for the safety and comfort of our customers on board.
"We're very sorry for the discomfort to our customers.
"We provided them with hotel accommodation and rescheduled the flight to depart the next day."
Donald Twain
Vide cor meum
'liquid faecal excrement' did for me
- Status