Jenjie

A police chief has taken himself to court after a force vehicle was caught by a speed camera. South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes pleaded guilty on behalf of the force to failing to supply the driver's identity. The force was fined £500 by magistrates in Rotherham on Thursday. The court heard "diligent inquiries" failed to track down the driver of the car, which was caught travelling at 47mph in a 40mph zone in June. Mr Hughes, who is head of road policing for the Association of Chief Police Officers, pleaded guilty by letter to failing to give the identity of the driver who was guilty of speeding and did not appear in court. 'Rules broken' After the hearing, he said: "There are a comparatively few number of cases each year where we cannot establish the driver of what is often a hire car being used by officers enquiring into murders and other serious incidents. "In the enthusiasm to follow up these inquiries, it would appear that our own internal rules about log books have not been complied with. "We are looking at ways of ensuring that those who have the responsibility in every district or department for the correct use of police vehicles will be held accountable in future by the courts." Last month, a South Yorkshire officer was cleared of speeding on his way to pick up a Chinese takeaway after being caught by a camera on the same road. Pc Stephen Akrill, 41, was caught by the speed camera driving a police Land Rover at 48mph in a 40mph zone. But he said he was on his way to an accident and magistrates, who heard the officer had ordered the takeaway in advance, cleared him. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/6215293.stm

I've already told you why I hadn't seen those. would have been useful to add a quick note to the mods forum :P

particularly as someone who has to clear up spam threads. it looked like my worst nightmare!!!

official spam days????? we're surely not that desperate!!! :P did look to go down very well though, even if some people thought we had been invaded by the long promised trolls! maybe make it an annual event like groundhog day, april fools day etc.

I don't mind compiling it for you if needed, but you may not find out until Dec31st who was who.

Health officials in New York are warning residents to stay away from stray animals over the holiday period. The advice follows a large increase in the reported number of rabies cases, including seven in December alone. The outbreak is centred on the borough of Staten Island, which lies off Manhattan, where 35 animals have tested positive for the virus during 2006. Rabies is highly infectious and usually passed on by a bite. In humans, it is almost always fatal if left untreated. The borough of Staten Island - which sits just off the southern shore of Manhattan - has a large population of racoons and other wild animals which are susceptible to the virus. But alarm bells really began to ring when a man was bitten in November by a rabid kitten which he had tried to rescue from the streets. He was successfully treated - in fact, it has been more than 50 years since any New Yorker contracted rabies. However, the spike in animal cases found during December has prompted the city health commissioner to issue a stark warning for people to stay away from strays, and to take their own pets to be vaccinated. The authorities hope that by footing the bill for the vaccination programme over the next six months, they will prevent the disease from spreading to other boroughs. There were no reports of rabies cases on Staten Island during 2005. One local politician has called for an emergency task force to be set up to try to track down the source of the current outbreak. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6213289.stm

The French-led Corot mission has taken off from Kazakhstan on a quest to find planets outside our Solar System. The space telescope will monitor about 120,000 stars for tiny dips in brightness that result from planets passing across their faces. The multinational mission will also study the stars directly to uncover more about their interior behaviour. Corot blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1423 GMT, carried into a polar orbit on a Soyuz-2-1b vehicle. A European Space Agency (Esa) spokeswoman said the take-off had gone smoothly. However, officials would not know until later whether the satellite had separated from its launcher correctly, she said. From its vantage point 827km (514 miles) above the Earth, Corot will survey star fields for approximately 2.5 years. The French space agency, Cnes, is working with six international partners: Esa, Austria, Spain, Germany, Belgium and Brazil. 'Chance' observation Ian Roxburgh, professor of astronomy at Queen Mary, University of London, UK, is the Esa scientist on the mission. "The exciting part of this mission is to look, or to try to find, planets that are similar to the Earth," he told the BBC. "That is, they'll be somewhat bigger than the Earth, but they'll be made of rocky material able to sustain an atmosphere, and probably provide the sort of environment in which life could form. "And of course subsequently, many years downstream, we will have more sophisticated measurements, instruments that will look for signatures of life. But at this stage, we need to understand how often there are planets like the Earth around other stars." Corot will monitor the brightness of stars, looking for the slight drop in light caused by the transit of a planet. This is a rare event - it relies on the chance alignment of the star and the planet with Earth. As a consequence, Corot must keep an eye on more than 100,000 stars. Star tremors With Corot, astronomers expect to find between 10 and 40 rocky objects slightly larger than Earth, together with tens of new gas giants similar to our Jupiter, in each star field they observe. Every 150 days, Corot will move to a new field and begin observing again. Its first target field is towards the centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Its next will be in the direction of the constellation Orion. Corot's instrumentation is also designed to detect the subtle variation in a star's light caused by sound waves rippling across the surface. These waves are the equivalent of seismic waves on the Earth. By studying these "starquakes", astronomers can gain a detailed insight into the internal conditions of the star. Corot stands for "Convection Rotation and planetary Transits". The satellite is the first of a number of spacecraft that will hunt and study distant planets over the next few years. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6203161.stm

Chinese cinemagoers are getting more spectacle than they bargained for in a record-breaking historical epic. Attention has focused on the quantity of bare flesh in Curse of the Golden Flower, which took 96m yuan (£6.3m) in its first weekend. Web forums have buzzed with debate on whether the film, nicknamed Curse of the Golden Corset, is salacious. Even the normally sober state news agency has described lead actress Gong Li's appearance as "eye-popping". The $45m (£23m) epic deals with court intrigue in the Tang dynasty and had the best opening weekend of any Chinese movie. But the costumes, or lack of them, have raised eyebrows both on the internet and in official circles. The Xinhua news agency said: "The most eye-popping role is played by Gong Li, the empress, whose breasts are so tightly wrapped that they appear ready to pop out of her costume." Chinese web portal Sohu.com alone has received 8,000 postings on the subject. "With costumes like that, you'd think China was more liberal than America," said one unnamed web user. "It caters to Western tastes while ignoring our own country's sentiments." Internet surfer "Bond" said: "What I remember is not the fighting scenes or the acting, but the shiny white flesh." Actress Gong, who was in the updated Miami Vice movie, defended the skimpy costumes as modelled on Tang dynasty fashions. "They show the beauty of a woman's curves. There was no feeling of awkwardness or danger for us wearing the costumes," she said. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6199941.stm

First bike ride 'elates' Hammond Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has said it was "fantastic" to ride a motorbike for the first time since his near-fatal jet-car crash in September. He told Motorcycle News he had taken his Honda Fireblade around the streets of London just days after being given the all-clear to ride by doctors. Hammond crashed in September while filming for the BBC motoring programme. "I just can't believe how good that was," he said, although he admitted the first few minutes were "wobbly". Hammond suffered memory loss and needed weeks of therapy after the 288mph (463km/h) accident at Elvington airfield near York in the north of England. But he said it had not dimmed his love of all things petrol-driven, especially his bike. "It felt like a fantastic connection straight back to a time when I hadn't suffered a brain injury and life was a lot simpler," he said. "That's why I ride a bike. I can come out of a TV studio or the big meeting doing grown-up stuff - but the moment I get on a bike I'm exactly the same person I was 15 or 20 years ago." He added: "That ride, the quick wobbly ride with me looking like a nobber, just made me realise why I love bikes and just what I started riding for all those years ago. "Every ride I have ever done... they all make sense and came back to me in a split second. "I'm finding it fairly hard to work out how I feel because just getting back on a bike has been incredible. "It's not like I had forgotten how to ride but I did have to really think about what I was doing. "It still felt perfectly natural, just my naturally cautious riding temperament has perhaps gone up a notch or two." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6214135.stm

hmmmmmmmmmmm!! albitron 2005

and there was me thinking you were going to say that that was just last night!!! :P just as a reference, how many have you started whils under the influence fo varying substances?? :D

Betting opens on new Potter plot Bets are being taken on whether boy wizard Harry Potter will die in the final instalment of the series - with his arch-enemy the predicted killer. JK Rowling, the multi-millionaire creator of the story, has hinted that tragedy awaits in the final novel. Lord Voldemort is the 4-5 favourite to kill off the popular character in the seventh book in the series, entitled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bookmakers William Hill said punters think the young wizard will die. William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams said: "JK mentioned that Harry might be killed off and the general consensus seems to be that Harry is the final Horcrux and to ensure that Voldemort dies he will need to be sacrificed." Other assassins In the Potter books, a Horcrux can hold a person's soul ensuring that they are immortal but Harry has to destroy them all to vanquish his enemy Voldemort. Mr Adams added: "Most of the early money has been for Harry, who has been cut from 10/1 to 6/1." All bets will be void and stake money will be returned if Harry confounds pundits and survives. Other contenders to kill Harry include Professor Snape at 5-2, Draco Malfroy at 6-1, Ron Weasley at 6-1 and Hermione Granger at 6-1. Mr Adams added that the bookies have also accepted punts on Ron and Hermione to marry, with Harry as best man, and on Harry to catch the snitch in a Quidditch world cup. Rowling, 41, is still writing the final book of the series which has sold 52 million copies worldwide. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6210437.stm

Possibly, but the Chronicles of Narnia had more religious overtones in them. I don't think Harry Potter has so much biblical reference in there.

Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!! Is Santa here yet?

Please don't post any answers in this thread. If you want to compete against your fellow Coldplayers, you can PM your answers to me. Deadline is Sat 30th Dec and I'll post the answers & results on Sun Dec 31st. 1. Boxing Day falls on December 26th, but by what other name is it known? 2. What was the name of the winter festival celebrated by the Roman’s? 3. What would a pagan be celebrating? 4. In which town was Jesus born? 5. What were the names of the Three Wise Men? 6. If you were in Germany, who would you be expecting on December 6th? 7. Who wrote “The Little Match Girl? 8. If I attended an Eastern Orthodox Church, on which day would I be likely to celebrate Christmas? 9. In what year did people in the UK begin sending Christmas cards? 10. What would Christians in China call Santa Clause? 11. According to the carol, with what should we deck the halls? 12. Who wrote the song “White Christmas”? 13. If someone said to you “Nadolig Llawen”, which country would you be in? 14. What would you expect to receive from your true love on the 8th day of Christmas? 15. Who introduced the Christmas tree to England? 16. When would you expect to receive presents from Grandfather Frost? 17. Who is the main character in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’? 18. Who was the author of ‘The Snowman’? 19. Who originally sand ‘We’re Walking In The Air’? 20. What is the name given to the 4 weeks before Christmas? 21. What is the European name for Groundhog day? 22. If your Mum is Jewish & your Dad is Christian, what might you celebrate in winter? 23. Which Christmas film from 1989 would you expect to find Chevy Chase in? 24. In ‘A Muppet Christmas Carol’, who plays Dickens? 25. For what occasion would you take an orange to church? 26. What would you expect to see on the BBC at 3pm GMT on December 25th? 27. Who fed the Wise Men on their journey? 28. which plant would you stand under to receive a kiss? 29. Where does Santa live? 30. Which angel visited Mary?

Muuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! Can we open the chocolate yet?

Hmmmmm!! That was difficult. there's loads of people I like who have had new albums this year which for some reason or other I haven't had chance to listen to. So I've not included them just in case! 1. Snow Patrol - Eyes Open 2. Belle & Sebastian - Life Pursuit 3. Take That - Beautiful World 4. The Feeling - 12 stops & home 5. Razorlight - Razorlight 6. Richard Ashcroft - Keys to the World 7. Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah 8. Tenacious d - The Pick of Destiny 9. Gnarls Barkley - St Elsewhere 10. Keane - Under the Iron Sea 11. The Pipettes - We are the Pipettes 12. Corinne Bailey Rae - Corinne Bailey Rae.

I had to organise the parties for the last 2 releases!! Absolutely mental both times!! But loads of fun.

http://www.coldplaying.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36665

Wonder who that was ;)

Exactly!! There should be a disclaimer at the end of the human rights act. It would read something like " Any person who commits an illegal act, and is caught doing so, waives all rights to make a complaint about their rights". Obviously it would need to be more complicated that that because of all the loopholes.

So it'll be a place similar to that at the end of the GOblet of Fire. The place where the Death Eaters were gathered and they killed the Quidditch boy (my memory's so rubbish I've forgotten his name). My thinking then, is that the end of the book will see Harry in a fight to the death with Voldemort in the Deathly Hallows.

I missed it!!! this may be somewhat ironic, but this is why I missed the programme. Was watching jonathan Ross & wrapping Xmas pressies, he announced Richard Hammond and at the exact moment the Hamster sat down on the sofa there was a huge bang outside. I ran upstairs to check it out and some idiot had crashed his car into the white van parked on the main road.