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With ever increasing cuts on the Police it wasn't a great surprise to hear on the news this morning that certain crimes were not being investigated, even sometimes victims being told to look for clues and evidence themselves.

What was surprising to hear via a local news report was that Warwickshire tops the failure list!

If Police funding is cut and continues to be cut how are they supposed to keep a level of crime solving up and what impact will that have both on businesses and the general Public as i would imagine more crime would equal a higher cost impact on Society.

I have nothing but praise for my local force in Worcestershire. Someone tried to break in to my house a couple of years back at 3am, with me inside! I rang the Police, (on the basis i wanted to see if they could catch him in the act, more than fear of life endangerment). No fewer than 6 officers were on scene within 5 minutes and found the "alleged" perpetrator 1/4 mile up the road. SOCO was on scene at 9am, with CID attending a short while after.

Sadly no evidence tied him to my attempted break in, however he was found guilty of 3 other break ins that night. Like i said, how can you be unhappy with that response? Maybe things would have been different if a major incident was occurring somewhere but then had i been told no one was on the way, i would have turned the lights on and scared the toe-rag off!

So it finally happened 

With mine rapidly approaching the age where they don't want to come away with their dad any more, i've probably only got 3 more years of inflated holiday prices  

My Uncle has badgers visiting his garden regularly, the odd deer too! Only down side is that they walk along the same piece of grass and have created a furrow in his lawn.

I'm not convinced by either side of the cull argument so for once keeping my mouth shut 

Just heard that the Police have said that the situation surrounding Ashya is nit right and prosecutors are in the process of withdrawing the arrest warrant.

About time !

Just seen on the BBC website that Uber has been banned in Germany for failing to have the correct legal permits to operate under German Law.

Uber have countered this and vowed to carry on trading pending an appeal.

What i didnt notice before is that Uber are backed by Google and Goldman Sachs Bank, so have plenty of clout and cash to fight their corner!

A new Government backed scheme to give every pupil up to the age of 7 in a primary school a free hot meal starts this week on the start of a new year.

In a report ive just read 98% of the schools will be serving their first meal this week.

In principle its a great idea but as is the case in the school i'm a Governor at, we will have to buy in the meals as we do not have a kitchen area. We have had to move things around to make room for the hot cabinets required. What will the quality of food be like and is it really the best way to provide a meal for the children?

I know there have been drastic changes in the way food is prepared since i was at school but in my mind keeping food hot for any length of time is detrimental to the quality of the food served, i can see waste being a major issue as kids will just turn their noses up at the food provided.

Anyone have any school aged children about to start school or receive their meal, or are you a Governor? Thoughts?

Interesting article from the BBC, apparently Google is showing older content to people using older versions of browsers.

On a Google forum its reported that users were encouraged to update their browser after a Google member of staff was quoted as saying its working as intended and that as they are continually making improvements to the search results, only limited support is provided for certain outdated browsers.

Safari 5.1 and Opera 12 seem to be the ones most affected by this move. Some of the support forum voiced they disapproval of this enforced upgrade saying that they like certain features of their current version of the browsers which are missing from current ones and went as far to say that they would now consider using Bing if things aren't resolved.

Full article is here - BBC News

Was reading the News earlier and saw that hospitals are reporting a drastic increase in treatments for skin cancer as peoples thirst for a bronzed body increase as package holiday prices come down.

I was in Corfu in the middle of August with my youngest son and between us we used 6 bottles of sunscreen, factor 30, to protect ourselves, we have a mild tan but neither of us wanted a tan as such. Yes we were out in the sun for most of the day but we kept out of it from 1-3.

Of course cancer can strike anyone at any time but why increase your chances by lying out in the sun for 10 hours a day, in low factor creams to get a tan? Why is the fashion industry obsessed with tanned/bronzed bodies?

I think the figure quoted was over £90 million to treat people with skin cancer and i wonder how many of those people treated have over used sun beds, just to be brown?

It isnt the sunbeds industry thats wrong, in fact using a sunbed to get a base tan is safer than going out in the sun milky white and then burning, but there are limits to how much sun bed use is recommended. Even records are kept by registered salons so you cant overuse them. If you ignore that advice and go to several salons a day you cannot then blame the sunbed shops if you are stupid enough to ignore that advice because now you have a melanoma.

When will common sense ever be applied?. Smoking was alleged to have been cool 30 years ago, look at the stigma now attached to that, when will people wake up to the effects of sunbathing? It isnt cool to be brown at the expense of giving yourself cancer.

I have been trying to follow this story and reading up just now that the parents are currently in Court appealing against their extradition back to the UK.

From what i gather, they fled to Spain to sell their holiday home to fund private treatment in the Czech Republic on the basis that the NHS have refused to treat the child with the same treatment on the NHS.

He has been taken out of hospital against advice, but since when did that become Law? Does a parent now not have the right to challenge the NHS advice and take him elsewhere to be treated?

Its alleged that the parents had an adequate treatment plan of feeding and drugs sourced off the internet and as parents naturally where taking good care of him.

So why the mass man hunt and why are they now holed up in a cell in Spain?

As a parent, you want the best care for your child and if the NHS would not fund a treatment then i would do exactly the same and take my child ANYWHERE in the World for he/she to be treated to give it the best possible chance of survival. 

I'm sure more of the case will drip in to the media soon, and my opinion may change, but on what little is out in public domain i'm in full support of the parents at this time.

Maybe less should be concentrated on the parents and thoughts turn to a gravely ill 5 year old who must be scared beyond belief and whilst he may have limited communication with the World no one knows what he is thinking or feeling.

I think that there are 3 or 4 of these so called magazines going around, maybe 2 or 3 are real but poorly promoted but there is most defiantly at least 1 if not 2 scam companies using the same kind of pushy sales techniques for very little in return.

Research, research and research - cant keep saying that enough. Never give out your card details on the first call, especially if they have with held their number.

Its a shame that the the one or 2 scammers affected us in the way that we would all like more advertising but are worried that we may be parting with cash that doesn't give us what we paid for.

If its a Charity and you genuinely want to donate, tell them that you will make your own donation to the Charity of your choice by your own secure method - i did have a DD set up to Marie Curie, now i just send a cheque or make a credit card payment on their website from the proceeds if i get compensation for anything i complain about