Rabbit Thought of the Day

Fifteen minutes and I’m off, first stop Lakeside Shopping Centre, then home. I’ll try and pop on tomorrow before I leave, otherwise I’ll be back on Monday, hope you all have a great weekend.

The Rabbit

This is why British Gas is putting up its prices; it only made £992 million pounds and of course had a great party at our expense.

LONDON (Reuters) - British Gas-owner Centrica has issued an apology after a social event, meant to brief staff on how to explain its 35 percent price rise to irate customers, ended in a drunken brawl.The Sun newspaper reported almost 1,000 Centrica employees were entertained at Wednesday's 250,000-pound event by comedian Jimmy Carr who joked: "I've put up my fee by 35 percent just like you".

The night started with a champagne reception followed by a four-course meal, one manager told the Sun on Friday.

"On each table was a bucket filled with bottles of Budweiser lager and red and white wine. There was a also a free bar. Back at some of the hotels there were punch-ups because everyone got so drunk," the manager said.

The 35 percent hike was Centrica's second price rise this year and British Gas Managing Director Phil Bentley, as part of the apology, said the briefing in Birmingham had been organised to prepare staff for Thursday's announcement of the increase.

"At such a difficult time for our customers, we need our staff to understand why energy prices are rising and what support is available to help our customers cope," said Bentley in a statement.

"However, we're deeply disappointed with the behaviour of a few individuals who let us and our customers down after the briefing ended, for which we sincerely apologise."

Centrica said it had been "absolutely necessary" to raise household gas prices as first half operating profit fell nearly 20 percent to 992 million pounds.

Recent sharp increases in fuel bills, together with large profits announced by energy companies, have fuelled calls for a windfall tax on their earnings.

Am bored I have suddenly run out of things to do, and being a Friday there are not many people round. I have asked a couple of people if I could help them with anything but nobody has geo anything for until Monday. I might as well go home for the use I am at the moment. I need to go to Lakeside shopping centre anyway; I need to buy a card and a present for Naomi’s birthday.

I ask my line manager when he comes from lunch, but I’m not holding breath.

Reuters:

Hollywood star Tom Cruise has been named in a $250 million federal lawsuit, which accuses him of continuous harassment. Peter Letterese, a one-time Scientologist has filed the lawsuit against David Miscavage, the leader of the church as well as Tom Cruise. Many believe that Cruise is now second in command for the church; he has been accused by Letterese of continuous harassment after he had left the organization.

Letterese has said in the lawsuit that he compares the Church of Scientology to a crime syndicate; he said that members of the church tried to convinces his lawyer’s wife that he was having a homosexual affair. One member of the church actually phoned the wife, the caller then tried to convince the lawyer’s wife that he was his Letterese’s gay lover.

Letterese seems to be going after Cruise, he said that David Miscavage is “aided and abetted by the actions of Tom Cruise, who is his right hand man. Cruise is in charge of foreign and domestic promotion, as well as for foreign and domestic lobbying. We are not sure how far this lawsuit will go, one thing is sure though The Church of Scientology is having a hard time just lately.

On this day in 1965 Formula 1, racing driver Niki Lauda narrowly avoided death when he crashed at the German Grand Prix, here is the news report of the day:

Formula One racing driver Niki Lauda is in a critical condition in hospital after an horrific accident at the Nurburgring Grand Prix in Germany.

The Austrian-born driver became trapped inside his Ferrari after it swerved off the track before bouncing back into the path of the oncoming cars and catching fire.

Fellow driver Guy Edwards managed to avoid the blazing wreckage but Harald Ertl and Brett Lunger both hit it. All three drivers raced to the burning Ferrari and, with the help of the Italian driver Arturo Merzario, who also stopped, eventually managed to pull 27-year-old Lauda from his vehicle.

Lauda, who has led this drivers' championship since the beginning of the season, began the race second on the grid behind James Hunt in pole position.

Guy Edwards said they had had problems getting the trapped driver out.

"Lauda was basically sitting in the middle of a fire and I would guess it would be about a minute before we managed to get the belts undone.

"In the meantime Ertl had got a fire extinguisher from somewhere and was aiming it towards the central cockpit area so he was able to keep the fire under some sort of control."

"Lauda was conscious most of the time and was saying 'get me out'."

Mr Lauda was taken to nearby Adenau hospital with serious burns. From there he was flown to the University Hospital in Mannheim where his condition is described as critical.

Skywatchers around the globe can see a total eclipse of the Sun on Friday.

A dark shadow will sweep across the surface of the planet in a broad arc as the Moon passes directly between the Earth and our star. The eclipse begins in Canada's high Arctic and ends in northern China's Silk Road region.

Parts of northern Russia will go dark for two minutes, 27 seconds from 1021 GMT - but Britain will only experience a partial eclipse around 1016 BST.

That partial eclipse will be seen across most of Europe, Asia and north-eastern North America. As is always the case with eclipses, tourists and amateur and professional astronomers have been flooding towns in the best viewing locations - along the path of totality. In Novosibirsk, Siberia's cultural and scientific capital, more than 5,000 foreign tourists were expected to show up in the city. "The viewing points will be set up in the very beautiful historical and cultural places of Novosibirsk, there will be a number of telescopes there. Thirty-eight telescopes will be set up in the park on the River Ob embankment," said local official Alexei Borisek.

Total solar eclipses usually take place about once every 18 months, and always at new Moon - when the lunar body sits directly between the Sun and the Earth.

However, they do not happen every new Moon. The lunar orbit is slightly tilted to that of our planet and therefore the Moon's shadow often misses the Earth.

The Moon's shadow has two parts: an umbra and a penumbra.

The umbra is the "inner" part of the Moon's shadow, and people inside this zone will witness the full glory of the eclipse. The penumbra is the Moon's faint "outer" shadow. It will only give surface viewers a partial eclipse.

This will be the case for skywatchers in the UK, for example.

In London, where the Moon's disc takes its biggest bite out of the Sun at 1016 BST (0916 GMT), a maximum of 12% of the star will be blotted out.

Conditions are better further north. In Lerwick in the Shetland Isles, the Moon will obscure as much as 36% of the Sun. Astronomical groups have reminded the public that viewing the Sun without protective equipment - even in partial eclipse phases - can result in a retinal burn and permanent eye damage.

Viewing the Sun's harsh light should only be done through proper solar telescopes or glasses, or through a pinhole projection system

Totality is timed to begin at sunrise at 0921 GMT in Queen Maud Gulf off Victoria Island in the territory of Nunavut, Canada. The instant of greatest eclipse occurs at 1021 GMT close to the Russian city of Nadym.

Totality ends at 1121 GMT near the Chinese city of Xi'an in Shaanxi province.

In all, the Moon's umbra will have travelled along a path approximately 10,200km long.

I suppose like a lot of people I have an account with Friends Re-United and I go on occasionally, really to see what old class mates are up too, it’s very rare that I would contact anybody though. This morning I received a message from an old army mate, I hadn’t seen him since the early 80’s.

He sent me a few pictures from when we were in Germany together; it was good to see the old faces again. I lost all my pictures on one of my many moves. So I am bit short of pictures of my time in the army, but he’s going through his collection to see what he can find, great isn’t it!

 I have a job interview arranged for next Tuesday, so I am just about to book a day’s holiday, to attend it, the agency I use is trying to arrange another couple of interviews so my day isn’t altogether wasted. There have been so revelations in the last couple of weeks that have made me re-evaluate my situation in this company. It is a good company to work for and the work is not overly stressful however the leadership is very poor and is probably the worst I have ever seen my operations director offers no direction, he works from a home a lot and is rarely in the office and the area manager was sacked from his last job for fraud. So I have decided to look for a new position.

Simple isn’t it!

Welcome to Friday fellow bloggers, not only is the end on the week but is the first day of a brand new month. Three weeks today it will be holiday time. God, am really looking forward to already I need really good break.  Yesterday, was a complete disaster, we have decided not to attend these meetings again for us they are a utter waste of our time. We have very little input and the items discussed don’t really affect us at the time being so the boss has said we won’t be attending any more meetings until we have more involvement in the project.