Google's new mapping of UK is worrying, but....

... it's fantastic for pranksters, especially if you like drawing enormous willies that can be viewed from space!!

Teenager's draws 60ft penis on parent's house
Matthew Weaver - Guardian

(image from the Guardian)

Google Street View is in the UK

And it's invading your privacy (but not mine - yet!)

The Google cars have been driving around 25 UK cities to map out 3D views of the UK, so if you're in one of the cities you can be looked up and nosey people can zoom in to peer through your windows.

Should put up with the intrusion?

This guy didn't!

This kid has dedication to education

He wanted to get to school so bad that he drove to school when he missed the bus. At the tender age of six. Ah, they grow up so quickly!!

I don't condone irresponsible behaviour... but, I have to make an exception here! He's my type of student - dedicated!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1107688/Boy-drives-family-car-school-missing-bus--continues-journey-foot-crashing.html?ITO=1490

I can't wait until a TV executive picks up on it and makes it into one of those action TV movies where he's played out by Micauly Culkin's youngest brother. It'll be great!!

Richmond, my home borough, most copied town name

Innovate, don't duplicate they say.


Unless you live in my home borough. Richmond is statistically the town name most others have copied. 55 different Richmonds in the world. It's just no big enough any more! Just try searching "Richmond" and you get returns from websites in America in the state of Virginia. Agh!

Interestingly, London is second place in the list - 46 in total. Next time someone accuses London of being one of the worst cities, blame it on its other 45 cousins!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1102645/All-roads-lead-Richmond-British-place-copied-world.html?ITO=1490

"Fat" engines

Oh dear me, it's all so very Fight Club, is it not?

A cosmetic surgeon in Los Angeles has managed to harness the power of his patient's excess fat to run his 4x4 (which is not the greenest of cars)!

Strangely enough, it's also illegal to run your motor off human waste... hmm! But with enough liposuction being performed in LA, that's an awful lot of juice for your motor!


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1101005/The-liposuction-fatmobile-How-cosmetic-surgeon-fills-car-patients-excess-flab.html?ITO=1490

Bush shoes 'projected' to sell well

This one's from the Guardian. Turns out if your product is used to overthrow (or just throw), the orders will flood in. But why?


Stampede for 'Bush shoe' creates 100 jobs
By Robert Tait for the Guardian

Their deployment as a makeshift missile robbed President George Bush of his dignity and landed their owner in jail. But the world's most notorious pair of shoes have yielded an unexpected bonanza for a Turkish shoemaker.

Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based Baydan Shoe Company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes which the Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi threw at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad last Sunday.

Baydan has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 - more than four times the shoe's normal annual sale - following an outpouring of support for Zaidi's act, which was intended as a protest, but led to his arrest by Iraqi security forces.

Orders have come mainly from the US and Britain, and from neighbouring Muslim countries, he said.

Around 120,000 pairs have been ordered from Iraq, while a US company has placed a request for 18,000. A British firm is understood to have offered to serve as European distributor for the shoes, which have been on the market since 1999 and sell at around £28 in Turkey. A sharp rise in orders has been recorded in Syria, Egypt and Iran, where the main shoemaker's federation has offered to provide Zaidi and his family with a lifetime's supply of shoes.

To meet the mood of the marketplace, Baydan is planning to rename the model "the Bush Shoe" or "Bye-Bye Bush".

"We've been selling these shoes for years but, thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy. We've even hired an agency to look at television advertising," he said.

Zaidi has been in custody since the shoe-throwing incident, amid claims that he has been badly beaten. He faces a possible jail sentence for insulting a foreign leader, but has reportedly apologised and requested a pardon from Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/22/turkey-george-bush-shoe

Steal the Empire State? You can in deed!

A newspaper in New York managed to steal the Empire State Building to expose a huge legal gap in the city's legal system. Because the city register clerks aren't required to verify the information, they were able to do it in under 90 minutes!

It was reported here in the Independent, but I managed to hunt down the original from the New York Daily Post, here.

Whatever next?