It was another peaceful day on Salona Beach in San Diego County. The sun hung lazilly in the sky, basking the people below in delicious hot rays, tanning their skin and keeping them warm. 8 people practiced for a triathlon in the waters, enjoying themselves without a care in the world. For one of these swimmers however, today would be the end of it all.

For the first time in 50 years, a fatal shark attack ocurred in San Diego County waters. Widely believed to be a Great White, the swimmer was clamped legs-first into the shark's mouth, leaving huge bloody gashes in the legs, resulting in a death from blood loss.


This leads me to reports of other deaths from animals. Aside from the ordinary and expected attacks from creatures such as Lions, Tigers and Bears, there is a whole host of different, bloodthirsty animals out there ready to destroy people who get in there way. Hippopotami are famous for killing in Africa. Indeed, they kill more people than any other animal in the continent, with the exception of man. When someone goes out on the water at the wrong time, such as dawn/dusk, a hippopotamus may well be disturbed, charing out of the war, biting the boat in half and dragging the hapless travellers to the bottom of the lake. Thankfully, it isn't carniverous, so will merely let you drown rather than eating you.

Other deadly animals include female mosquites, which have killed at least 45 billion people, or half the amount that have ever died, through a host of deadly diseases, which includes, but is not limited to: yellow fever; dengue fever; elephantiasis; and of course malaria.

Cape Buffallo, with their razor-sharp horns and sheer mass, kill hundreds of people each year. Elephants, those cute grey lumps, kill at least 500 people each year. The Box Jellyfish has killed over 5500 since 1884.

Yet perhaps the most surpising killer animal is the ordinary marmot. Also known as the groundhog, this small, unassuming member of the squirrel family is know to tear apart and consume lost travellers in the mountains. It is beleved that they kill up to 3000 people in Austria alone each year. Of course, this is complete rubbish. Marmots kill in the similar method to mosquitos-by spreading disease. More specifically, Bubonic Plague, better known as the Black Death. All the Plague epidemics that occured in Europe came from Mongolian marmots spreading the disease with travlellers, and of course the Mongol Invaders of the 14th Century. At least 1 billion people have died from Marmots. So the next time your'e in Pennsylvania for Groundhog Day, keep well back from the murdering rodent.

Comrades! To Arms! The Revolution is coming, the Workers are throwing off the shackles of the Imperialist Capitalist State! Finally, those who opress the people will be overthrown, and our new society will arise from the ashes, with all men and women equal as one!

I'm referring of course, to today's National Strike by the National Union of Teachers. Now seeing as teachers are generally middle-class graduate professionals, they are not exactly "The Workers", but will this strike perhaps be a sign that the Government can no longer choose to give out pay rises as they wish, and instead be drawn back to the negotiating table to decide a fair amount? Unlikely. For one thing, it is an independant body which decides the pay rise, not the government. Second, it seems unlikely that a strike will resolve anything. Education isn't a money making operation for the Government-all a strike will do is make kids happy and parents annoyed (although if they direct the anger towards the government, it might help) and as it was only one Union which went on strike, chances are very little will result from this.

However, that does not detract from the true issue behind the strike. Despite 13 weeks of holidays, teaching remains an incredibly demanding profession. It is not easy to face classes of 30 kids every day, dealing with behavioural problems and targets, all whilst struggling on low pay and student debt. Teacher's pay needs to be brought into line with other graduate professions in order to boost both recruitment and retainment. I am entirely sure the country could do with loosing a few lawyers or city banks, and the benefits for society of extra teachers would far outweigh any financial loss to the government. Considering that I am the child of a teacher, I may perhaps be biased somewhat, but it still remains, that teachers play an incredibly important role in the development of the nation's youth. Therefore, they should be rewarded adequately for what they do.

Now my room seems to have similar properties to an oven, in that it gets boiling every night. So of course, I have to leave a window open. When I woke up this morning, I suddenly found myself a victim of a putrific stink whilst still in my own bed. Disgusting. Of course, I had no idea at the time what it was, and thinking it was my cat, had to search the whole room for the source. On leaving my house, I could still smell it. Getting paranoid now, I checked my shoes to make sure I hadn't stepped in anything, sniffed my clothes and so on. Really scared. Why is that guy looking at me? Do I smell???? Got to the train station..smell still there...oh no it must be me. What do I do? What do people do when they smell this bad?

Get on the train....smells gone. Breath a sigh of relief. Get off at the next station to transfer. Oh god the smell is here too!!! It has to be me. I need to call in sick, take a day off and scrub myself like there's no tomorrow. My friend Liam now comes walking up. I brace myself for an insult as to my present odour. Seeing my screwed up face, he remarks "Oh, I see you can smell it too. Apparently theres a massive stench across London." My face relaxes a little. "You mean to say, it's everywhere? Not restricted to 10 metres around me?" "Yup, everywhere. Don't know what it is though. Maybe something happened to the dump?"
"That must be it, yeah" (change of conversation ensues)

Later check the news. Apparently it's French farmers, spreading manure everywhere and the wind blowing it over. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They still want to invade.

....And this just in at the newsroom.

It appears a new wave of violence has hit the streets of Mexico. Following on from the well-documented accounts of drug runners fighting police along the USA-Mexico border, with armouries the size of the US Marine Corp's and drug dealers equipped with GPMGs, grenade launchers and SAMs easilly taking care of the underpaid and underarmed police. Now it transpires that on March the 7th 800 people gathered in the city of Quatemero in order to wreak havoc and cause destruction. Their reasons: incited to do so by radio presenters. Their target: Emo kids. Many violent attacks took place, and the violence has since spread to Mexico City, and abroad into Chile. Let us hope that these poor opressed Emo kids can succesfully vent their unhappiness from these attacks on their livejournal, something they almost never do.

Beer. Beer bellies. Long hair. Leather jackets. All men over 40. Nothing quite like a country and western music live show at a pub to enliven a dreary sunday afternoon. Despite the sheer ropyness of many members of the crowd, the music was actually quite good, particularly the last act. An 82 year old man came on stage with his banjo, and contrary to all my expectations, managed to perform spectacularly well, singing songs on subjects such as how a sheep fell down and hurt it's leg, or something along those lines. Well worth the effort to go, I say.






On a dissimilar note, what is the world coming to? I was on the bus, when a gang of hoodlums board and begin to heckle some poor innocent woman over her choice in clothes. Even by the time I had finished my chapter in the book, no one had bothered to do a single thing.

Now, we all know that politicians only serve to lie, cheat, and maximise their own game whilst metaphorically (and in some cases literally) screwing the public up the ass. With the upcoming May 1st London Mayoral and Assembly elections now just 19 days away, it is probably high time I decided just who gets my vote. Here's the 4 main candidates:

1) Ken Livingstone. The incumbent mayor. Likes newts and whisky. Reasons to get my vote: already has 8 years of experience as mayor, gave me free bus travel, true Londoner, Labour party. Reasons to not get my vote: been in power for a long time-change is good.

2)Boris Johnson. The Tory candidate. Likes cycling. Reasons to get my vote: entertaing, wants to bring back the old routemaster bus. Reasons for not getting my vote: Tory, frequent gaffes can get too far i.e. the pickaninie one, very right-wing

3)Brian Paddick. The Liberal Democrat. Likes men. Reasons to get my vote: is better able to represent London's diversity, has experience of fighting crime-good for London's alleged "Crime problem". Reasons to not get my vote: seems insecure in debates, and unsure as to what he is actually doing.

4) Sian Berry. The Green Party. Likes the enviroment. Reasons to get my vote: very keen on stopping global warming and reducing emmissions. Reasons to not get my vote: would be wasted vote.


So, to conclude then. Ken will be getting my vote. Not only does he have lots of experience, a necessity for leading a major world class city, but he has lots of policies that make sense. As lovely as the Routemasters were, they were outdated and unsuited for actual use. The congestion charge is great, despite what suburban SUV drivers seem to think (try actually living in London), public transport has greatly improved, and he likes a good tipple. All in all, I quite like him.


Good Night everyone

The best farm animal ever! These goats, known as Fainting Goats, seize up when surprised, falling on their backs with the legs out stiff and temporarily unable to move!

See more here
http://youtube.com/watch?v=we9_CdNPuJg

Although apparently the name is a bit of a misnomer, as they don't actually faint, maintaing consciusness...