Today is possibly one of the most stupid but funny international days of the year:-
Talk like a Pirate day

The Official Website offers advice and discussion on how to make the most of the event.

The UK version yarr.org.uk has similar offering catering specifically for the UK population.

Not sure if i’ll be doing anything specific but may try and slip the odd “yarr me hearty” at the end of sentences.

This picture really says it all – this is St Mark’s square and the flood water is up to the hips
The worst flood for 20 years

The Venetians call it “Acqua Alta” or High Water as it literally translates. It comes in 2 forms really.
There is the mild flooding that comes with the tidal lagoon.
This affects a few areas more than others as the water flows up through the drains into the streets. Warning signs for tourists show which areas are most likely to be affected. It’s not a huge problem at this stage, and life goes on.
It looks like this in St Mark’s square:

What you see in the first photo though is the more dramatic where the water comes into the squares from the open water
This can only happen when the tide is high and the water level has been raised significantly either by rain or low air pressure. This leads to the dramatic flooding we see now when the water mark around St Mark’s Square hits 1.5 Metres (over 5 foot). 90% of the city is flooded. Tables have to be erected & raised to enable people to get around. Many homes (especially those on the ground floor) are flooded.

There are some plus points to acqua alta, especially if you’re a wakeboarder:

Youtube link to Wakeboarding in St Marks Square
And some pictures of the Wakeboarding

As we all know now Barack Obama is going to be the first black US president, but I’m not going to talk about the in’s and out’s of the election or the merits of his victory.
Instead I give you

Dizzee Rascal on newsnight interviewed by Jeremy Paxman – the result is rather comical

Link for those who want to view it on youtube.com

(in the next section i’ve completely copied the transcript of the interview into chunks in case the link isn’t available in the future and to highlight certain parts. DR is Dizzee Rascal, JP is Jeremy Paxman)

The highlights of the interview are:

• When asked if the UK could have a black president it went as follows:

JP: … could you see this happening in Britain?
DR: Yeah. In time.
JP: You’re rather positive!
DR: Yeah, man. Why not, man? There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? …
if you believe you can achieve, innit?

Radio One have been mocking this final line but at the same time it almost is something the “yoof” of today could take to heart.

• When asked on political parties he acknowledged they existed but little else:

JP: Dizzee Rascal, do you believe in political parties in Britain?
DR: Yeah, they exist. I believe in ‘em … I don’t know if it makes a difference. But you know what I mean. It is what it is. Politicians … say what they say – you might get every now and again a genuine one, innit? But I think people, like, as a whole make the difference …

• When asked if he considered himself British, Paxman calls him “Mr Rascal”. Dizzee then comes out with a classic on who could run the country:

JP: Dizzee Rascal, Mr Rascal, do you feel yourself to be British?
DR: Of course I’m British, man! You know me! … what’s good. I think it don’t matter what colour you are, it matters what colour your heart is and your intentions. I think a black man, purple man, Martian man can run the country … as long as he does right by the people.

• And finally, Dizzee reckons he could run for PM and that Obama’s victory couldn’t of happened if he hadn’t embraced hip hop:

JP: Well why don’t you run for office?
DR: See, that’s a very good idea. I might have to do that one day. Dizzee Rascal for prime minister, yeah! Wassappenin’! Barack Obama embraced hip-hop, man. That’s the way he got through to kids. There was a more young vote ever. And it was through hip-hop!

There’s a new “drug” also known as a Herbal Powder going round called Akuz (sorry, best link i could find in 2 minutes).

Apparently they had problems with people switching the powder for cocaine when it first launched, but the bottle is now tamper proof so you won’t be sold coke inadvertently.

The company who makes it has been saying it’s all “Just Harmless Fun” when asked whether it encourages young people to take drugs that like Akuz are sniffed up the nose. It’s an orange powder which apparently makes your nose burn and gives a bit of a sugar-rush like sensation. It turns your snot orange.

I’d not caught onto this story before (probably because I haven’t been following much world news) about Human Feet washing up on the shores of Westham Island near Vancouver – article from the Guardian 21st June 2008.

Five human feet have washed up on the island coastline around Vancouver since August last year, including two in the last four weeks. All but the one on Westham Island have been right feet; all but one appear to have been male and all have been wearing trainers – Reeboks, Nikes and Adidas. The first four were all size 12…

…But the most recent foot turned out not to be human at all. A prankster had stuffed an animal paw into a trainer and then planted it on the beach. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were not amused…

…DNA profiles of the first three feet, found last year, do not match any missing-person cases, according to the coroner’s office. While the evidence has been gathered, there are few clues to the origin of the five feet…

…
Theories about the origins of the feet abound. Some suggest that they belong to victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami, or that they may be from the victims of maritime or air accidents.

Others point to the large numbers of missing people in British Columbia. According to police there were 2,371 people listed as missing in the province at the end of May, with gang-related crime, drugs and homelessness all contributing to the problem. The exploits of a Vancouver area pig farmer, Robert Pickton, loom large. Pickton was convicted last year of the murder of six women, and according to the prosecution at his trial confessed to the murder of 43 others.

The suggestion that there may be a criminal element connected with the appearance of so many feet is bolstered by the conclusion of Ebbesmeyer and other oceanographers that the feet have most probably been carried down the Fraser river – which flows from the Rocky mountains before reaching the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver – swelled by the spring snow melt…

…Back at Westham Island, the man who found foot number five has few doubts about its origin.

“This is coming down from the river, no question about it,” he said. “There’s someone doing this all right. Think about it: if they tied a chain around someone’s ankle and threw them overboard, the foot would just pop off. That could explain it. Maybe they got a lot of bodies stored up in a container and they got washed out. We don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff goes on over there,” he added, nodding toward the city.

It’s all very puzzling, rather creepy, and disturbing

However, it reminded me of a story relating to european dairy farmers. I don’t have a link for it unfortunately, but it goes something like this:

The EU concluded that there was too much milk being produced by dairy farmers to the point that it was being called a “Milk Lake”. To address the problem they legislated that a certain percentage of dairy cattle would have to be slaughtered, though the farmer would be compensated by the EU for every cow he had slaughtered. The way they would be paid was simple; the slaughter house would give the left ear (it may not have been that specific or even been the right ear) of every cow and a certificate to the farmer to send off to collect his money.
The scheme appeared to have been successful as the uptake had been very high after several months. Shortly after the scheme had been stopped, it was noted that were a lot of cows roaming fields with only one ear! The cows were still alive producing milk, with the only problem that they were missing an ear so slightly deaf.
I’ve heard it told as Italian farmers, though I believe the French were the biggest culprits.

Anyway, that was what sprung to mind, but I do hope something more is discovered about the the mystery in Westham Island

20 years ago today the Great Storm hit the UK as the remnants of one of the storms from the 1987 Hurricane Season in the carribean. It was Hurricane Floyd from the bay of Biscay which crossed the atlantic and hit the UK.
The worst storm in 284 years: 23 people died from the storm and much devastation was caused
I remember it very vividly – I was 8 years old at the time and it knocked down our huge apple tree in the back garden

However, the thing I remember was the mistake british weatherman Michael Fish made the night before

Youtube link for those reading on RSS or those who don’t see the video above

27th June 2007 is going to be heralding an end to an era in the UK…
An era that began in July 1994 when Tony Blair became the leader of the Labour party which then lead to him becoming the Prime Minister of the UK in the 1997 General election

I was too young to vote in those days (I was a mere 16 years old), but the result was very surprising. 12 years of Conservative party rule had come to an end. “Blairism” had begun… the theme tune Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream was being played everywhere, and was genuinely being believed.
And I think things did indeed get better in Blair’s first term. There was a good balance of old Labour and New “Blairite” Labour.

Because they had won by such a large majority, it was inevitable that they would win the election 4 years later (in 2001), allowing blair to serve a 2nd term. This time I will always remember for the Stealth Taxes which Gordon Brown, the Chancellor used to make it seem like Labour weren’t increasing taxes, as they’d promises to do. The 2nd term was also dogged by the war in Iraq (2002), and after this there were fears that Labour would not win in 2005. They still had enough support, and with help from the Hutton Inquiry Labour was still in power after the 2005 election.

On 10th May 2007, Tony Blair announced that he would be standing down on 27th June as Party Leader, and election of a new leader began. Gordon Brown won without any competition within days as nobody else in the party could drum up enough support to mount a leadership campaign.

Why am I blogging about this you may ask?
Well… I’ll tell you one thing, that’s not what I’ll be looking forward to on 27th June. Released on that same day is the final part of the Die Hard series:

Live Free or Die Hard

I hope Tony departs with a bang!

It has been over a week since Bob Woolmer, the coach of the Pakistan cricket team was declared dead after being found unconscious in his hotel room on 18th March in Kingston, Jamaica during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

Initially, his death was thought to be from natural causes – he was 58 years old (which is not old these days but not young), always slightly portly, suffering from a medical condition and had type II diabetes.
However, when the post mortem proved inconclusive, the investigation stepped up a level, and his death was considered “suspicious” by the police.
This proved to be the correct line of thought, as on the same day police confirmed Bob Woolmer had been murdered

It is quite scary, because the first person I phoned was my friend Sham, and one of the first things I suggested was the possibility of underhand dealings. This was dismissed by my dad as stirring things, but it looks like my suspicions were valid.
Cricket was again making International headlines and for the wrong reasons

The History

Robert Andrew Woolmer was born in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India on 14th May 1948. He moved to England as a child, and played county cricket for Kent from 1968 to 1984 scoring over 15,000 runs and taking 420 wickets at first class level. He played 19 test matches and 6 One Day Internationals for England. He saved England against the might of Lillee and Thompson’s pace bowling scoring 149 (one of his 3 test centuries), battling for 8 1/2 hours.
He was one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year in 1976.
However, like many others of that time, he chose Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket over England to earn his living in 1977, thus shortening his playing career. He did return in 1981 but that winter chose to go on the rebel tour to South Africa (who were banned from international cricket following because of Apartheid).

Woolmer settled in South Africa, married and fathered 2 children. He continued to be involved in sport, having already done coaching at a school in Kent as a physical education teacher (aged 22), after becoming a qualified coach in 1968.
He coached a coloured Hockey team and the Avendale Cricket Club in Athlone, Cape Town before returning to England in 1987 to coach County Cricket teams. The most recent being his stint at Warwickshire between 1991 and 1994.
He was an innovative coach, choosing to use computers and video footage where it had not been used before. He encouraged the use of the sweep and reverse sweep shots. Fitness and fielding were vital to one day cricket, and it was in these fields where he made Warwickshire a very tough team to beat even though only their 1 overseas player was regularly playing international cricket. They won the Natwest Trophy in 1993 and 3 of the 4 available trophies in 1994.

From this success he was offered the position of coach of the South African national cricket team, following their return to international cricket in 1991 with the abolition of apartheid & Nelson Mandela’s new ANC government.
Woolmer hastened their return, and within 2 years they were competing with the very best teams in the world. This was impressive, since they had been banned from international cricket for 21 years.
The team that toured England in 1994 with Woolmer as coach made big names of Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Jonathan ‘Jonty’ Rhodes, Wessel ‘Hansie’ Cronje, and Gary Kirsten. South Africa soon overtook all but Australia in the international team ranking to become 2nd in the world.
Woolmer remained coach until 1999, and was hotly tipped to take over as coach of England to replace David Lloyd. But he declined for various reasons, and instead took up a position as Head of Performance at the ICC where he promoted associate member nations to improve the standard of cricket in countries such as Ireland, Kenya, Nepal, Scotland, USA, Bermuda, Bangladesh, UAE to name but a few.
His contract had not finished when in 2004 he was approached by the Pakistan Cricket board to coach the national team amidst a down in form and problematic team selection. Woolmer relished the challenge, and the ICC agreed to release him from their contract to pursue this.
He had moderate success in what is well known to be the most difficult side to coach.
On 17th March 2007 Pakistan made a shock exit from the Cricket World Cup losing to Ireland in the group stage. On the same day, India lost to Bangladesh putting their World Cup future in doubt.
Woolmer said in the press conference “It’s only a game” and that he would sleep on his coaching future as his contract renewal would be discussed at the end of the world cup. Being knocked out so early it would be unlikely for it to be renewed, and sources also claimed he had decided to call it quits after the competition.
The next morning, at 10:45am in room 374 of the Pegasus hotel, Bob Woolmer was found unconscious, he was taken to the nearby University Hospital and shortly pronounced dead.

The cricket world was in shock, and the pakistan team were struck a double blow when 3 days later it would be confirmed that their coach was murdered, and his death was caused by asphyxiation following strangulation. There was also suspicion that he was drugged/poisoned.
Players, Administrators, friends and fans across the world have paid tribute, and many matches since the news have been played with black armbands worn in respect.
Allan Donald, who probably knew Woolmer best, called for the tournament to be called off. But this opinion has not been supported by others
The Bob Woolmer Academy is due to be built in Nelspruit, South Africa despite his death.

However, this all begs the question, who would want to murder Bob Woolmer and why? Which leads to…

…The Controversies

I’ve glossed over these in the history, as it is probably better to group them together in their own section.
1. Match Fixing

The first was probably the match fixing scandal in 2000
It rocked South African and International cricket when the South African captain, Hansie Cronje confessed in April 2000 that he had accepted money to either fix matches and/or ensure bowlers gave away a certain number of runs or that batsmen scored less than a certain amount. The news coming from Cronje, a devout christian and follower of the What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) movement was a shock the world over. Working with the authorities, many players were banned, including Cronje himself. The bookmakers are thought to largely remain at large around the world. As a consequence of the scandal, the ICC set up an anti corruption unit to ensure it never happens again and that match results are not compromised.
Several matches not involving South Africa are largely thought to have been fixed, often involving India and Pakistan, where there is a lot of money to be made from gambling. Some of the bookmakers involved with Cronje were from India and Pakistan.
The group B match between Pakistan and Bangladesh in the 1999 World Cup in England is thought to have been fixed for Bangladesh to win. Pakistan had qualified for the next stage regardless of the result. With Bangladesh winning, their promotion to playing international test cricket was speeded up significantly.
Was the match between Pakistan and Ireland a fix? Did Bob Woolmer find out about it when he shouldn’t have known?

2. Drug Taking

In November 2006, just before the ICC Champions Trophy, the Pakistan Team management, allegedly led by Bob Woolmer enforced a mandatory drugs test on all their players. Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif, the two key Opening bowlers tested positive for Nandrolone, an Anabolic Steroid banned by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Following the tests they were pulled from the Champions Trophy squads and hauled over for disciplining. Shoaib was banned for 2 years and Asif for one year… but they both contested the ban claiming they had taken it accidentally in herbel supplements from a Hakim and that they were unaware of the substances they were taking. The appeal was heard, and a month later, the bans were removed and both players were available for selection.
The true story is probably that Bob Woolmer and his coaching staff in addition to the players were well aware of what they were taking. The ICC competitions have much more stringent rules than other tournaments. Rather than having any of their important players caught in a random drugs test during the competition, the management took it on themselves to test everyone and deal without involving the ICC. Once the players were disciplined, they could then appeal and the punishment could be reduced or even reversed.
This did not go down well with the authorities, and the ICC and WADA will probably review their policies to prevent teams and cricket boards from doing this in the future.

3. Ball Tampering… and Darryl Hair

The Summer before the drugs was the debacle in England at the end of the 4th Test
For the first time in the history of test cricket a match was awarded because a side refused to take the field. I was at the ground that day at the Oval.
Daryl Hair, a controversial umpire for which I could write an entire blog entry on what he’s done in his career to stir & muddy the waters, accused the pakistan team of tampering with the ball. Ball tampering is banned under the laws of cricket under law 42 subsection 3.
The Pakistan captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq was horrified, so too was Bob Woolmer. When the team were due to resume after the break for tea, the team staged a sit in.
Daryl hair played the scenario by the book and went out to the middle with the England batsmen, waited 10 minutes, removed the bails and led the batsmen off. In doing this, he was calling the game off and awarding it to England.
15 minutes later, the entire Pakistan team came out, but this time the Umpires refused to play.
The whole scenario was a debacle, of which didn’t improve when Daryl hair trying to blackmail the ICC to be silenced.
There was a hearing which concluded there was no ball tampering, the pakistan captain was disciplined and Daryl Hair has been removed from the elite panel of umpires, and will more than likely not umpire an international game again.

4. The Book
The final controversy was not in the news until after Woolmer died, because the day after his death, the 600 page manuscript of the book he had been writing with co-author and sports scientist, Tim Noakes. In an article in the guardian and on the radio, Noakes has repeatedly stated that the word “match fixing” is not mentioned in the manuscript and there is nothing that would ‘blow the lid’ and could provoke someone to murder Bob Woolmer.
Noakes said:

There is absolutely no truth in that story, besides, how could anyone know what’s in the book, nobody in Pakistan could possibly have seen it. The only secret Bob was revealing in the book was how to coach cricketers properly

A flock of Rose ringed parakeets in London – their population has grown to 30,000 now and it has got to the point where they are threatening indigenous species.
The RSPB agree and a spokesman’s quote below:

Mr Webb said that, at 16 inches long, a parakeet was larger than many garden species so shooting them “should not prove too difficult”. But he added: “Of course, many people would be distressed to see any animal shot.”

They seem to be all over london and the south east devouring fruits and seeds which indigenous birds eat.

Where did they all come from?
There are three theories mentioned in the article among others, but nobody really knows, but it looks like they’re here to stay.
1) Rose-ringed parakeets started breeding in the wild in the UK is that an entire flock escaped from Shepperton studios, Surrey, during the filming of The African Queen in 1951. It is thought around 20 birds vanished from an aviary on set.
2) A pair of the birds were released by Jimi Hendrix in Carnaby Street in the Sixties as a symbol of peace,
3) They are the descendants of domestic pets which escaped their owners’ cages

They’re very noisy birds, and I’ve seen them for myself roosting in the trees of Hampstead Heath

A bit of a current news event for today’s post
The UK is currently experiencing a bit of turmoil with potentially contaminated petrol being sold in certain petrol stations
So far, it has mostly been reported as being sold by Supermarket Chains Tesco and Morrisons though it has been all across the country:

So what is it?
The latest investigations are suggesting that the petrol is contaminated with Silicon which is causing damage to the oxygen sensor. The sensor measures the amount of oxygen in exhaust gas, and once damaged it means that the ECU (the computer in the engine) no longer knows how much oxygen is present so goes into a kind of shut down mode.
I’m told that because of this there is a huge shortage in the UK of oxygen sensors in garages. The repair costs roughly £200 and there are likely to be many car owners suing those responsible.

Interestingly, when I heard what the problem was my first reaction was different from what others are suggesting. “Experts” are mostly talking about variations in petrol composition and contamination during transport.
My first thoughts were in the process of producing petrol.

So, I thought I’d do a little Chemistry lesson in how you convert crude oil into petrol:
(Images all from Wikipedia)

In the olden days, after digging your oil out of the ground:

You heated it in an industry version of a fractionating column:

Each component in crude oil has a different point which it can be distilled off so you can split it into fuel gas, LPG, petrol, light cycle oils used in diesel and jet fuel, and heavy fuel oil.
The problem is that the biggest earners of all of these are found in the smaller quantities in crude oil, so in the late 19th Century they developed Cracking
Let me summarise:
The simplest of these processes is Thermolytic Cracking – also known as Pyrolysis.
The process enables you to convert the heavier fuel oils into lighter fuels such as LPG, petrol and diesel which are in greater demand
In 1936, the first commercial Thermal Cracking refinery was set up to get more out of crude oil.
Essentially you heat at temperatures up to 1000 degrees C and high Pressure (~700kPa) in absence of Oxygen, and the heavier components of oil are released leaving the lighter ones available for extraction.
The process contains many reactions many relying on free radicals – more details in the article

By 1942, the process had been refined and named Fluid Catalytic Cracking. The advantage of this is you get a higher octane rating at a lower temperature and without need of exerting high pressure. It uses a Zeolite Catalyst (A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a reactions and remains unchanged at the end). Zeolites are Aluminium-Silicon based materials, often containing Sodium, and used as Molecular sieves due to their structure:

Sometimes they will also use Silicon (IV) Dioxide

It is here where I think it is possible that the contamination could take place

Just my 2 English pence, but it seems more feasible than some form of contamination during storage – I just can’t buy that when there’s so much Silicon being used in the manufacture