Rabbit Thought of the Day

British Gas owner Centrica has announced it is to raise gas prices by 35% and electricity prices by 9%. The UK's biggest domestic energy supplier said that the price hikes would take place with immediate effect.

It blamed "soaring wholesale energy prices", but added that standard tariff prices would not rise again in 2008. The move comes just a few days after rival EDF Energy put up gas prices by 22% and electricity prices by 17%, with other firms expected to follow suit.

Watchdog Energywatch said it believed the 35% gas bill rise was the biggest single increase in the price of a utility seen to date. Centrica said the average dual fuel bill for a British Gas customer would go up by 25% - putting the average household bill at about £1,250. This is the second increase this year, after a 15% rise in bills in January.

"We very much regret that we have had to make this decision at a time when many household budgets are already under pressure," said British Gas managing director Phil Bentley.

"The simple fact though is that we have entered an era of unprecedented high world energy prices."

A report prepared for Centrica earlier this month warned that annual average gas bills could rise from £600 to more than £1,000 early in the next decade.

Centrica said that wholesale gas prices in the coming winter would be up 89% on the previous winter.

It added that the UK was suffering from diminishing gas reserves, and estimated that the UK would import 40% of its gas this year compared with 27% last year.

The price of gas has risen in recent months as it is linked to the cost of oil, although oil prices have started to fall again in recent weeks.

British Gas, which has 15.9 million customers, said its profits for the first half of the years were down by 69% to £166m.

This is copied from the BBC website.

 

A T-shirt featuring a knife has been removed from shelves in Selfridges following a complaint by a customer. The £25 top, which depicts a stab wound, was on sale at a designer concession in the central London store.

Janina Rout spotted the item while shopping and complained to the store saying the T-shirt glamorised violence and should be removed. In a statement Selfridges said: "Following a complaint from a customer, a T-shirt was withdrawn from sale."

Ms Rout was looking for a T-shirt for a friend's son when she saw the top and complained to a member of staff. She said: "We picked up a T-shirt... but next to it was this T-shirt with a dagger and blood running down the side of it.

"We took it to an assistant and said we felt that in the state of affairs that's going on it should be taken off the shop floor." Ms Rout said she waited more than two weeks for a letter from Selfridges about the matter.

The incident comes two weeks after Nike withdrew a range of trainers called Air Stab from its London store. The company said it removed the shoes from its Nike Town store in Oxford Circus "given the current climate". A total of 16 teenagers have been stabbed to death in the city this year.

Thankfully the store as seen sense and removed the item from sale, but didn’t anybody think about this before it went on sale, and who in his right mind designs something like this.

My visit to the nurse yesterday evening was once again good news. This week I have lost another two pounds, bringing my weight down by 8 pounds in the first two weeks of my diet. I must admit that I thought I had lost more, I had reckoned that maybe I had lost 4 pounds, but alas it wasn’t to be.

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to lose six pounds every week and I fully understand how difficult it will be but I am determined to get down to my ideal weight, so I need to lose about 5 stone altogether  and I hope do it in six months (maybe a bit optimistic). But with diet and exercise I think I can do it, I am strong-minded and resolute and I will do it!  

A British soldier was killed in an explosion in Afghanistan on Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The MoD said the serviceman, who was from the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, died in Helmand province.

The soldier's death brings the number of UK troops killed on operations in the country since 2001 to 114.

The soldier's next of kin have been informed. His death follows the killing on Monday in Afghanistan of 35-year-old Sergeant Jonathan Mathews. The soldier who died on Tuesday was on a routine patrol that clashed with Taleban fighters early that morning. During the fighting he was seriously injured in an explosion. He was flown out for medical treatment but died during the journey.

Army spokesman Lt Col David Reynolds said: "Everyone in Task Force Helmand is affected by the death of a soldier, and the thoughts and sympathies of us all are with the family at this most difficult time."

2 Para are having a hard time during this tour, 10 members of their unit have died since they operational tour began.

Police are fighting a losing battle against drugs crime, with seizures having little impact on reducing supply or demand, research has suggested. The UK Drug Policy Commission said despite the large sums of money spent tackling the problem, traditional police tactics were not working. It said the £5.3bn British drugs market was too "fluid" for law enforcement agencies to cut supply.

It added more should be done to reduce the effects of drugs on communities.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The government agrees that enforcement in isolation is not effective."

Drugs are already a serious burden on society but it appears is could get much worse, I’m sure Jackfrost will have views on this.

Manning shortages in key military trades such as submariners, aircrew, mechanics and medical staff are threatening the operational capability of Britain's armed forces, an MPs' report has warned. The House of Commons Defence Committee blamed the strain of simultaneous deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the erosion of mandated breaks between tours of duty for an increase in numbers of personnel quitting the services.

The committee urged the Ministry of Defence to drop its blanket opposition to unions for rank-and-file troops, recommending it should "constructively consider" proposals for an independent Army Forces Federation as a channel for them to voice their complaints about pay, housing and disruption to their family lives. The report warned that the armed forces are operating at an "unprecedented" tempo, with commitments outstripping the levels for which they are resourced, putting servicemen and their families under "intense pressure".

Measures to improve welfare for troops and their families "don't go far enough" and not enough is being done to address manning shortfalls or to ensure that "harmony guidelines" dictating the length of time between tours are not breached, said the MPs. While the number of trained personnel joining the frontline is falling, numbers quitting the services early have increased, and the problem is particularly acute in certain "pinchpoint trades" which are significantly undermanned.

The Chief of Staff (Personnel) Rear Admiral Charles Montgomery told the committee: "Manning balance is not the issue which really keeps me awake at night. What keeps me awake at night is the key pinchpoints where we are short." Serving troops posted complaints on the committee's online forum about "criminal" housing conditions, kit shortages which led to UK troops being nicknamed "the borrowers" by better-equipped American allies and a general feeling of being "taken for granted".

Liberal Democrat defence spokesman Nick Harvey said: "The exodus from the armed forces is now so grave as to be an issue of national security. "Serious questions must be raised over the long-term viability of the Army's manning targets. Instead of dithering, Gordon Brown must set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq."

The military was heading down hill long before labour came to power, the seeds of its demise were shown in the early 80’s when Maggie (the milk snatcher) Thatcher was in power. It was the Conservatives who made the first and most drastic cuts. They reduced the strength of the Army from 170,000 men to around the 117,000 the Navy and Air Force suffered similar cuts. Then Labour came to power and the reduced it even further.

The former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, has been flown from the Serbian capital Belgrade to the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. He was moved from the court building where he had been held since his arrest last week after 13 years on the run.

He has been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s. His transfer comes hours after clashes at a rally attended by at least 10,000 supporters to protest about his arrest.

More than 40 people - most of them police officers - were injured in clashes during the final speeches at the rally organised by the hardline nationalist Radical Party. Riot police fire tear gas at protesters armed with stones and burning flares.

Three cars with tinted windows left the Serbian court building at about 0345 Belgrade time (0145 GMT), with Mr Karadzic inside one of the vehicles.  He was then flown to Rotterdam airport in the Netherlands, where helicopters and cars were waiting to transport him to the UN court's detention unit.

Mr Karadzic will make an initial appearance in court in the coming days, when he will hear the charges against him. He will be allowed to enter a plea immediately or take 30 days to do so. The 63-year-old had attempted to challenge the legality of his transfer.

An appeal, posted at the last minute on Friday, had still not been received by the Serbian court on Tuesday, prompting Serbia's justice minister to issue the final extradition order. It remains unclear whether the appeal was ever sent.

Wednesday, and the count down as begun to the weekend, this weekend we are off to Wiltshire so see David and Naomi, David is Rosemary’s son and Naomi is his wife, apparently  David is the intelligent one of her children he’s a genetic scientist so I suppose he does have a certain intellect. Naomi is no slouch either she his studying for her PhD and is a very accomplished musician I sometimes feel out of depth when chatting to them.

I’m afraid I deviated from the subject matter in hand there; he lives close to one of the famous white horses carved into the Wiltshire country side, and this is the point I was supposed to be making. When we went to see the white horse last year, I was very disappointed to see that it has been concreted over. Yes, you did read correctly, to stop the erosion, the actual horse has been filled in concrete, you can’t tell from driving by or from any great distance but when you get up close there is no mistaking it.

The hillside into which it has been carved is quite steep and kids now slide down the carving on their arses, no doubt wearing holes in the backsides of they trousers and making their parents despair.

It’s a shame that it as been concreted over, it has to be protected but surely there must have been a better way.