Rabbit Thought of the Day

Great news, the planned hike in fuel tax as been postponed. It will now be introduced in March instead; it would be far better if it cancelled all together or better still cut duty on fuel. But of course we know that will never happen.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair called off a ground-breaking visit to Gaza in his role as Middle East envoy after a specific warning of an assassination plot.

Israel's Shin Bet security service told him he might come under attack there after it received "pinpoint information" that Palestinians were planning to attack him.

Mr Blair's visit was to have included a tour of a Gaza waste water project and meetings with traders and UN officials, but not with leaders of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that seized Gaza by force more than a year ago. However, Hamas was in charge of security arrangements for Mr Blair, setting up checkpoints in areas he was expected to tour, banning cars from using roads, and lining streets with black-clad policemen carrying AK-47s.

Since the Hamas takeover, Gaza has been virtually sealed off from the world by Israel and Egypt, a policy that has received tacit international backing.

Mr Blair has said in recent weeks that a new policy toward Gaza needs to be developed, pointing to the growing suffering of Gaza's people, but has not offered a plan. The options are limited because much of the international community considers Hamas a terrorist group and has shunned its government.

I would have thought this is not the first threat against Blair nor will it be the last, I would imagine that he will require police protection for the rest of his life, and if the extremist have any say in the matter that won’t be long in coming.

Check out these cute little guys:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7506677.stm

Three white lion cubs born last month have made their first public appearance at a safari park in western Germany.

Five years without fishing around Lundy Island off the coast of Devon have brought a significant revival in sea life, scientists report. Lobsters are seven times more abundant within the protected zone than outside. The eastern coast of Lundy is the only "no-take" zone, where fishing is completely prohibited, in the UK. Conservation groups say UK seas need more of them, but the government's recent Marine Bill promises much vaguer "marine conservation zones".

The Lundy zone was set up five years ago by Natural England and the Devon Sea Fisheries Committee, which administers fishing along the county's coasts, in partnership with local fishermen. Natural England scientists believe the zone should help Devon's lobster-potters by providing a refuge where young lobsters can grow to maturity, then migrate into areas where commercial fishing is permitted.

The approximate doubling in numbers of young lobsters has not been seen at the two distant sites, suggesting that it is a consequence of the no-take zone.

Scientists are now putting tags on the lobsters they catch. Fishermen are being encouraged to report catches of tagged animals, in order to show how far they are migrating out of the no-take zones.

Fishermen are generally cautious about no-take zones, which is one reason why the government plumped for the much more adaptable "marine conservation zone" concept in the draft Marine Bill

Natural England's root reason for wanting the zone closed was not to help fishermen, but to return a tiny fraction - 0.002% - of the UK's seas to the state they were in before the era of modern fishing. "The site wasn't only set up to protect lobsters - it's to protect the whole environment," said Chris Davis, the agency's senior specialist in marine policy.

My colleagues found highly amusing yesterday, when I told them that the nurse had put on a diet, the usual terms like oh yeah that you’ll break within the week was heard on numerous occasions. Mind you the most abuse I got was a colleague who is actually large round the middle than me. But they won’t make a bet with that I can lose the weight required. I have never give up on anything, I know it will be difficult I have no illusion on that score but I will do it.

I do look at myself in the mirror and am disappointed with myself at what I have become, at one point in my army career I was a PTI (physical training instructor) and  in 1984 I completed the Berlin marathon in under 3 hours, I was as they say very fit, now am just a fat git, lol. I know I will never be that fit ever again but I want to a least be able to run a couple of miles without collapsing. I will let you all know how I get on.

Its Wednesday once again, half way through the week, and the last day I will be in the office, tomorrow I have another design in meeting in central London and on Friday I have a training course, once again in central London. I have also sorted my computer and I will be able to connect to the web and check my emails, mainly because I will be in one of our satellite offices that has all the necessary facilities.

Yesterday day we had our annual results published and they make for good reading. We have over 30,000 employee’s world wide and our turn over rose by 21.5% to over £4.2bn, but best of all, our order book is full with over £9.31bn worth of work, so I shouldn’t be getting made redundant in the near future, always a possibility in this climate with house builders making their staff redundant. Profit was also up by 42.3%, the question on everybody’s lips in the office is will we get a bonus. But we haven’t yet seen any flying pigs so I doubt it.