A house for £60

For first-time buyers struggling to get a foot on the property ladder, it represents a godsend. The mansion is 300 years old, has 17 rooms, sits in nearly three acres and is valued at £650,000. In September, the front door key will be handed over to a new owner for just £60.

That person will be the winner of an extraordinary competition. The present owners of the house on the banks of the River Ouse near Goole, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, have decided to offer it as a prize to help finance their retirement and raise money for charity.

Alf Overy, 66, and his wife Kath, 62, have lived in the Old Parsonage for a quarter of a century. They put it on the market last year but it failed to sell, as would-be buyers told them they could not afford the asking price. So the couple decided to give all comers a chance with a £60-per-entry online competition which, in the style of spot-the-ball, challenges participants to look at a doctored photo of the property and guess where a missing shadow should fall.

Happy St. George's Day !

St. George's Day is Today !, April 23rd, so, in a sense, this is England's national day.

St. George is the patron saint of England. His emblem, a red cross on a white background, is the flag of England, and part of the British flag. St George's emblem was adopted by Richard The Lion Heart and brought to England in the 12th century. The king's soldiers wore it on their tunics to avoid confusion in battle.

St George was a brave Roman soldier who protested against the Romans' torture of Christians and died for his beliefs. The popularity of St George in England stems from the time of the early Crusades when it is said that the Normans saw him in a vision and were victorious.

By tradition, April 23rd is the day for a red rose in the button hole, the national flower. However, unlike other countries, England does not celebrate it like Americans celebrate 4 July with fireworks. In fact, you are more likely to see big St Patrick parades in England celebrating Ireland's National Day, more than you would see any sign of St Georges Day being celebrated. This was certainly true in Manchester in 2003, when St George's Day was virtually ignored soon after the biggest St Patrick's Day Celebrations in the city's history.
For most people in England St George's Day is just another ordinary day.

Interesting Facts Despite the fact that St. George has been the patron saint of England since the 14th century, only one in five people know that St. George’s Day falls on April 23rd. More than a quarter of people living in England do not even know who their patron saint is! Shakespeare was born on April 23rd, 1564 and he died on the same day in 1616.

Fake fax faux pas

HICKMAN, Kentucky - Officials mistakenly released a prisoner from a Kentucky facility after receiving a phony fax that ordered him freed, and it took them nearly two weeks to realize it.

The fax contained grammatical errors, was not typed on letterhead and was sent from a local grocery store. The fax falsely claimed that the Kentucky Supreme Court "demanded" Timothy Rouse be released.

Rouse, 19, is charged with beating an elderly man and was at the Kentucky Correctional & Psychiatric Center in La Grange for a mental evaluation. He was released April 6 after officials received the fake court order.

Lexington police arrested Rouse at his mother's home Thursday evening.

"It's outrageous that it happened," Fulton County Attorney Rick Major said. "I'm just glad nobody got hurt because he's dangerous."

Police are still investigating who faxed the letter.

Attorney Carlos Moran, who is representing Rouse, declined to comment.

Prison officials did not notice that the fax came from the grocery store because policies did not require checking the source of a faxed order, said the LaGrange facility's director, Greg Taylor.

"It's not part of a routine check, but certainly, in hindsight, that would perhaps have caused somebody to ask a question," he said. Misspellings on orders are common, he said.

London Marathon

A record 36,500 runners took part in this year's London Marathon, many in weird and wonderful costumes. Dave Pickup did the race dressed as a bakewell tart.

Amorous camels wreck dingo fence

One of the world's biggest man-made structures, Australia's Dog Fence, is under threat from amorous wild camels barging into it in search of partners.

The 3,500 mile-long fence, stretching into Queens land from the Great Southern Bight in Western Australia, was built in the 1950s to keep dingoes and wild dogs out of sheep-grazing areas in the east. Kangaroos and emus regularly damage it, but the camels - descendants of animals brought to Australia in the 19th century to open up the interior - have become the biggest problem.

The wild camel population, already the largest in the world, doubles every eight years, and the mating season is now under way. Michael Balharry, manager of the South Australian segment, said that frustrated males were ramming their way through the fence to reach females.

The problem with the barrier - twice the length of the Great Wall of China - is that camels could get their heads over it, he said. "If you add a bit and electrify the top of it, maybe this will stop them."

Wallaby adoption

A wallaby joey rejected by his mother has found a new home - in the pouch of another new-born's mother.

The two two-month olds are sharing the same pouch after one's mother lost interest in rearing him at their home in Paultons Park in Hampshire. Geoff Masson, livestock manager at the funpark near Ower, said mother wallabies normally resented any other joeys trying to use their pouch.

"At the moment all seems to be going well," he added. "However there may be a few problems due to lack of space as the joeys get bigger. It is very unusual for a female wallaby to adopt another joey. They normally give birth to a single young and resent any others going anywhere near their pouch. However, for some unknown reason this mother decided that it was ok for the pair to share her accommodation."

Wallabies are born after a gestation period of a month and the single newborn normally climbs into the mother's pouch and attaches itself to a teat.

Drug humiliation

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A father says he wasn't trying to shame his 14-year-old son when he made the boy wear a large sandwich-board sign saying, "I abused and sold drugs."

"I'm not out here doing this to humiliate my son," the father told WATE-TV as the teenager walked up and down the sidewalk Wednesday in front of Cedar Bluff Middle School.

"I'm doing this because I love him," he said. "We do have an extreme drug problem in America, and maybe it's time for extreme measures that parents need to take to monitor this problem that we have."

The man wasn't identified by the station to protect the confidentiality of the son, but he appeared on camera. The son's face was not shown.
The father said he recently learned after reading the boy's MySpace page that his son was involved with marijuana and OxyContin. That's when he decided to act, and the boy agreed to the punishment.

After a short time, the school's principal soon came out and asked the father to call it off, which he did.

By then the boy said he'd learned his lesson. "This is embarrassing. I ain't going to be doing it again," the boy said. "Drugs are for losers. That's all I can say."

Nat West the secure bank

In an impressive security move, London bank staff left the keys to their branch on top of a cash machine outside.

Honest passer-by Paul Andrews spotted the keys, realised they unlocked the front door of NatWest, and rang police to tell them of his potentially valuable find.

'I'm still trying to open an account with the bank and I certainly wouldn't hold this against it,' he added. 'Everyone makes mistakes.'

NatWest insisted customers' money was not at risk as the branch in Pinner, North-West London, 'remained fully alarmed throughout'.

Moving the goalposts

A thief was caught red-handed in Sweden with a quarter of a tonne of goalposts in his van.

Authorities discovered the horde of cut-up goalposts and crossbars in his van when stopped in a routine police check in the southern town of Tomelilla.

Lasse Bengtstroem, 50, said he planned to sell the metal on to scrap dealers who are paying high prices for the aluminium used in the goals.

Good on ya Granny

(WAYNESBURG, Ky.) -- Don't cross this 82-year-old former Miss America.

Venus Ramey was crowned Miss America in 1944. Last week, she caught a man she thought was stealing from her farm in south-central Kentucky. So she shot the tires out of his vehicle so he'd be stuck there until police came.

She was on her Lincoln County farm, in central Kentucky, last week when she saw her dog run to a nearby building where she stores old equipment. Ramey says thieves had been breaking into the building to steal the machines, so she decided to investigate.

When she confronted a man she found on the property, he said he would leave. Ramey says she told the man, "Oh, no you won't."

Ramey had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed 38-caliber handgun.

"I didn't even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now."

Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911.

When deputies from the Lincoln County Sheriff's Department arrived, they arrested Curtis Parrish of Ohio and charged him with trespassing, Deputy Dan Gilliam said. Three other people were detained and questioned but were not arrested, Gilliam said.

Ramey lived in Cincinnati for several years -- even making an unsuccessful bid for City Council in 1979 -- and was instrumental in helping rejuvenate Over-the-Rhine historic buildings.

"I remember her as being an interesting character," said former councilman Guy Guckenberger. "She was something else."

She returned to Kentucky in 1990 to live on her farm.

"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.

Monk-ey business

Two opposing groups of Buddhist monks clashed in the streets of the Cambodian capital on Friday during a protest to demand religious freedom for their colleagues living across the border in southern Vietnam.

Some 50 monks marched through Phnom Penh to voice their grievances over the alleged mistreatment by Vietnamese authorities against Cambodian Buddhist monks in the country. They marchers said they came from southern Vietnam.

The protesters marched with banners demanding that Hanoi stop limiting religious freedom on ethnic Cambodians in southern Vietnam.

"The Vietnamese authorities have forced many Cambodian monks there to defrock," said Lim Yuth, who took part in the march. "As a Khmer race, we must have the right to practice our faith."

As the march made its way across the city Friday morning, another group of six monks confronted them outside a Buddhist temple. The groups clashed in a fist fight while some of the protesters also tossed water bottles at their opponents, witnesses said.

One monk was injured in the brawl, witnesses said.

Ham comes from chickens ...

A third of primary school children think oranges grow in Britain. Almost half believe margarine comes from cows, and a quarter assume bread is made from potatoes or rice.

A third of primary school children think oranges grow in Britain. Almost half believe margarine comes from cows, and a quarter assume bread is made from potatoes or rice.

The findings are revealed in a survey of children aged 8 to 11 by the polling organisation Mori. Half of the 356 children questioned did not know ham was produced from pigs. A third thought it came from chickens, 10 per cent assumed it was from cows, 5 per cent from sheep and 2 per cent deer.

The survey was commissioned by the National Farmers' Union (NFU). It approached the makers of Little Red Tractor, a BBC2 programme for pre-school children, who agreed to include scenes explaining where food comes from in the new series. Future episodes have storylines about how potatoes grow in the ground and the process for making cheese.

Bev Wilson, campaigns manager at the NFU, said: "It's sad so many children don't fully understand the origin of their food. They need a basic understanding of where food comes from."

Tourists to Galapagos reduced

Tourism to the Galapagos Islands may be heavily restricted after fears that the archipelago’s unique ecosystem is under threat, the Ecuadorean President said yesterday.

Rafael Correa said that the islands are in “imminent ecological danger” in a statement that coincided with a visit by a Unesco delegation investigating ways to preserve the archipelago.

Arguing that “to assume our responsibilities we do not need studies from some international organisation”, Mr Correa has ordered government ministers to consider restricting tourist and residency permits, and reducing the number of flights.

The isolated islands are famed for their unique fauna — including giant tortoises and marine iguanas, left, — species that helped to inspire Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

In 1979 Unesco declared the Galapagos a World Heritage Site, but last month it gave warning of threats to the ecosystem of the “fragile and delicate” island chain.

The plans will include a full census of the islands’ permanent population. About 15,000 Ecuadoreans are official residents in the Galapagos, but an estimated 5,000 live there illegally.

In addition, each year 120,000 tourists visit the islands, which sit 625 miles (1,000km) off Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

Evil hopscotch kids

When Lisa Badland gave her five-year-old son Ryan some coloured chalks to mark out a hopscotch court outside her home, she expected him to have an afternoon of innocent fun.
Little did she imagine that he would end up in trouble with the police.

Yet that is what happened when two policemen, acting on a tip-off from a neighbour, arrived in a quiet cul-de-sac, lined up Ryan and five young friends and told them off for drawing "graffiti".

Remarkably, when the children's parents emerged from their homes to find out what was going on, the constables instructed them not to let their children play in the street or draw on the road or pavement. One mother said that she was also advised that one child was not dressed warmly enough.

Yesterday, the parents accused officers of over-reacting and frightening their children. Critics said the case was an example of police taking on "soft targets" while failing to tackle serious crimes. The incident took place on a housing estate in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, favoured by families because its peaceful streets are safe for children to play in.

The road was later washed clean by rain. Since the incident late last month the children - aged between three and 11 - have been banned by their parents from using chalk outside. Graham Coogan, 35, said his three children, Nicole, eight, Sian, six, and James, three, were all told off by the two officers.

"The police told me that my children had been chalking on the street, and it could actually be classed as graffiti," he said. "They said that they could ask me to clean it off.

"They also said they were concerned about the children being in the street. But it's a quiet street, and the reason we moved here was so the children could play out safely. The officers weren't unpleasant, and I didn't want to be confrontational, so I just went along with it."

Avon and Somerset Police said that it had received a report that up to six children aged around 14 were drawing graffiti on roads and pavements. The call was logged as alleged criminal damage.

Almost extinct tiger makes a comeback

After a century in which its numbers have dwindled to the point of extinction, the Amur tiger, the largest cat in the world, has made an improbable recovery. According to WWF, the tiger's population is at its highest level for 100 years.

The latest census of the tiger, which hides in an isolated region near the Chinese border, shows there are between 480 and 520 animals surviving in the wild.

In the 1940s the sub-species had nearly died out, with around 40 tigers left. Most experts put its chances of survival as little higher than the dodo's.

Yuri Darman, the head of WWF Russia's far east office, said the tiger's comeback was good news. But he warned that the species remained critically endangered and was at imminent risk if China succeeded in lifting the global ban on tiger products at the Global Tiger Forum in Kathmandu.

"The success of the tiger population is mostly the result of the tiger ban in China and the support of the Chinese government," said Mr Darman.

The animals live in the Sihote-Alinn mountains, a remote and frozen 750-mile strip of territory in Russia's Primorski and Khabarovski provinces. The forested region is home to wild boar and red and sika deer, the tiger's food.

But the tigers are prey for impoverished locals and poachers who sell their hides on the black market across the porous border with north-eastern China.

British bobby wins Lithuanian personality of the year

A Police Officer in Norfolk has just won Lithuania's personality of the year award. The country's main commercial TV channel TV3 sent a crew to the town last month to make a film about his achievement.

He won the station's personality of the year section of the awards after tens of thousands of Lithuanian viewers voted for him. PC Pettengell and his wife Sarah, also a police officer, were flown out this week to take part in the televised Pride of Lithuania awards in the capital Vilnius.

PC Gary Pettengell is an ordinary Bobby on the Beat in Great Yarmouth. He was moved to work on the seafront, and there came into contact with the community's large immigrant Lithuanian population who more often than not were in trouble with the law, usually for acts of petty theft.

So far so unexceptional. It was Gary's response to this which was amazing.

It would have been so easy to think well, crime and immigrants, that's life isn't it? But Gary didn't. Instead he went to the library, got out some language tapes and taught himself some basic Lithuanian in his drive to work. He then went about trying to understand this community, eventually uncovering the other half of the story.

Lithuanians were coming here via dodgy intermediaries and through work agencies who paid them little, and took most of that away on board and lodgings. Some had not eaten for a week, and resorted to crime simply to eat. Gary was disturbed enough to begin to address these problems. Firstly, by posting information on the web about basic services, how to get an NI number, how to access medical care, how to get a bank account. He then lobbied the local Criminal Justice Board to dset up money for a Welcome to Norfolk website which now contains all this information.

Drink

An unusual figure glows on a pedestrian signal in Prague, Czech Republic, April 11. An artist replaced the usual figures, saying he wanted to free them from their "strait jacket." The artistic vejavascript:void(0)
Publishrsions will be removed.

Nicked after 27 years

NZ - The law finally caught up with Maxwell George Thomas yesterday – albeit almost 27 years late.

Thomas made a voluntary appearance in the Invercargill District Court yesterday on a charge of assault with intent to injure, alleged to have happened on June 3, 1979.

Defence counsel Kate McHugh told Judge Graeme Noble in the Invercargill District Court yesterday it was only when Thomas was stopped by police in Dunedin last week he became aware of the charge.

A warrant for his arrest was issued on first call on June 7, 1979, although it appeared Thomas had never been summonsed to court and the warrant had never been activated, she said. "He was 26 at the time the alleged offending occurred and he is now 52."

Thomas had moved to Brisbane in 1993 but returned to New Zealand every year during the muttonbird season. No plea was entered as police were now on the hunt for the file which Ms McHugh said was in a "deep, dark vault somewhere".

Acting Sergeant Glen McMurdo said they would need some time to locate the file and make a decision on whether they would proceed with the charge.

Thomas was remanded at large for a further three weeks until May 11.

7 babies

ALGIERS: An Algerian woman has given birth to seven babies in the capital Algiers, but one of them, a boy, died almost immediately, a Health Ministry official said.

The mother gave birth to the boy and six girls at the Kouba public hospital on Wednesday, the official said, adding the six girls survived.

According to the latest Guinness World Records, there have been three known cases of seven children surviving birth; two in the United States and one in Saudi Arabia.

Man sell speeding ticket

New Zealand - It started as a speeding fine on a lonely Canterbury road, but by the end Bob Grieve was a Trade Me star, $51 richer and fielding amorous advances from complete strangers.

Grieve, a TV3 news cameraman in Christchurch, was peeved when a slightly heavy foot while driving back from Geraldine resulted in a policeman handing him a $130 fine.
So he did what anyone does these days – he put the ticket up for sale on online auction site Trade Me.

Ten days later, his auction had been viewed nearly 30,000 times, questions were being posted faster than he could answer them, and then his ticket was being sold to an insurance assessor from near Pukekohe who vowed to pay for the privilege of having someone else's speeding fine.

The successful bidder, Allan Hearn, said he decided to buy it because he was impressed by Grieve's spirit of enterprise.

"For fifty bucks, who cares? It's not like that handbag that Tana Umaga swung which sold for $20,000," he said.

"I thought it would be a bit of fun. I didn't really know how it would go, but I figured quite a few people would notice it," he said.

"I told my missus about it and she called me an idiot."

Hearn said he did not think he had ever had a speeding ticket before – a gap in his life that is now filled.

Grieve, whose user name is Bobthegreat, said he thought the bidding would peter out before reaching the $20 reserve.
"I was surprised when some guy put $50 on it," he said. "I was surprised by something else too."

It was the flurry of amorous comments once he posted photographs of himself holding his traffic ticket. Susan, a Lower Hutt woman, asked if "the holder comes with the ticket" and put her money where her mouse was by bidding four times early in the auction.

Other women across the country followed suit, with many alluding to Grieve's resemblance to Donny Osmond.

"Imagine finding true love during a Trade Me speeding ticket bidding war ... sounds like a movie!"