Rabbit Thought of the Day

A wanted poster featuring Robbie Coltrane is being used by police in New Zealand to try to catch a teenage burglar who resembles the actor. Detectives stressed the Cracker and Harry Potter star is not suspected of any crimes, but said the thief looks like a 16-year-old version of him. The poster has been distributed to homes in the Christchurch area of the South Island.

New Zealand law bans the publication of pictures of juvenile criminals.

Below the heading 'Wanted' is the picture of Coltrane, underneath which are the words 'Active burglar in this neighbourhood'. Bicycle burglar The text below explains that the photo is of Coltrane and continues: "Robbie Coltrane is not the burglar but imagine him aged 16 with lank greasy hair and you have the picture.

"He is 16-years-old, lives locally, travels by bicycle and burgles houses in your street. "He will break windows to gain entry and ransack the property targeting electronic items, cash and jewellery." It explains the reason for the use of the Scottish star, who the New Zealand police describe as English. "Because of the

Children and Young Persons Act 1989 Police cannot show you a picture of the 16-year-old burglar operating in your neighbourhood," it states. Residents reportedly welcomed the leaflets and praised the ingenuity of the police. Coltrane was unavailable for comment.

Robbie Coltrane is 58, not exactly a 16 year old!

Yeh Right! 

Switching from beef to kangaroo burgers could significantly help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, says an Australian scientist. The methane gas produced by sheep and cows through belching and flatulence is more potent than carbon dioxide in the damage it can cause to the environment.

But kangaroos produce virtually no methane because their digestive systems are different.

Dr George Wilson, of the Australian Wildlife Services, urges farming them.

He says they have a different set of micro-organisms in their guts to cows and sheep. Sheep and cattle account for 11% of Australia's carbon footprint and over the years, there have been various proposals to deal with the problem.

Now Dr Wilson believes kangaroos might hold the answer.

He said: "It tastes excellent, not unlike venison - only a different flavour."

The country already produces 30 million kangaroos farmed by landholders in the outback. But Dr Wilson is keen to see that population dramatically increased to produce the same amount of kangaroo meat as that currently produced by conventional livestock.

Methane is about 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide molecule for molecule. But the much greater volume of CO2 generated by human activities such as industry and transport means that it is the largest contributor to modern-day global warming.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Italian police officer Francesco D'Aniello won an Olympic silver medal in double trap shooting on Tuesday and appealed to the Italian government for a tax exemption on his reward money.

"I would sincerely hope that the (Italian) parliament would pass this law," D'Aniello told a news conference when asked about the taxation back home, a question and answer translated from Italian back and forth through Chinese and English.

"We athletes go through major sacrifices to get to this level. It would be the right thing to do to remove the taxes from what we get here. It would be a very good thing," he said, without stating the value of the reward.

Italy is among the many countries that offer lucrative financial rewards to their Olympic medallists. Greece, for example, offers about 190,000 euros ($277,000) for gold medals, 130,000 for silver and 70,000 for bronze.

This is everything that is wrong in the Olympics; the games should not be about financial reward but about the taking part, producing the best you can do, and being proud of what you have achieved. If you win then a medal then that should be reward enough. What do we give our athletes for winning medals anybody know?

Over the last few months we have been bothered with a number of nuisance calls, Ofcom call these calls ‘Silent Call’ where the phone rings and when you answer they is nobody on the other end. In some cases the caller has left his number and on other occasions the caller has withheld the number.

On a few occasions I have actually managed to speak with someone, one was doing a survey and were based in inner London (I recognised the STD Code). The gentleman of foreign decent (judging from the accent) was polite enough but very persistent and when I indicated that I didn’t want to participate in survey continue to talk to me about how important this survey was and if I would listen for while, about this time I hung up.

A few hours later the same organisation called again, I listened to is opening statement and then politely said ‘No Thanks’ and hung up. Now this kept going on for a few weeks, on Friday I finally lost patience and told the operator that under no circumstances did I wish to be contacted again, but he kept on and on, finally at the end of my tether I once hung up and switched off the phone. After a few hours I switched the phone back on, within 15 minutes it was the same company again, I said that you phoned me not long and I was interested in doing your survey, the guy on the line had the cheek to say but I haven’t phoned you, I pointed that he maybe hadn’t but your company had, I told him that I would be reporting him and his company to Ofcom and hung up.

Now I have been on the Ofcom site and reported them, but they do not investigate calls like this only monitor them. So how do I sort these people out is there a procedure, police or something I go through? To tell you the truth how I actually never swore at the guy I never know but I do want something done. Any suggestions?

To catch up with what I have had for my meals this week, here is a quick summary;

Monday: Breakfast consisted of fresh fruit and a couple of glasses of water, lunch was a ham salad with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, Tesco’s 3 bean salad and a couple of Ryvita crackers, evening meal was cod in parsley sauce, boiled new potatoes peas and carrots. During the day I had a few snacks, of apples and plums. Plenty of water and a few cups of tea with semi-skimmed milk. In the evening I did 6 miles on my bike.

Tuesday: Breakfast was a bowl of shredded wheat, semi-skimmed milk and a cup of tea. Lunch was a cup of slim a soup and Ryvita crackers, evening meal was Batchelors golden savoury rice with some bolognaise I had frozen from a previous meal. Snacks again included apples, plums and banana, and 2 slices of wholemeal bread.

Today: Breakfast included fresh fruit, tea with milk. Lunch will be the rest of the rice from last night, tomatoes, and low fat smoked sausage. Evening meal will be prawn stir fry, with boiled rice, onion, green pepper a little soya sauce and of course fresh prawns. Snacks will include apple, orange, plums and Melba toast. Probably 6 miles on the bike or 3 miles brisk walk with Caz.

Am keeping this blogs short, as long blogs tend to become tedious.

The second key to success is exercise, now this will fill people with dread. There has been so much in the media is resent years on how the nation is becoming overweight and lazy and we don’t enough exercise, the Government is not often right but on this occasion I have to agree with them. So how do we get the exercise we need, well the experts say that we should do at least 3 sessions per week each session should be 30 minutes long. This seems a little rigid to me and is probably not the best way forward.

The key is planning, now I am a morning person some people are night owls but whatever type of person you are this is when you should plan your exercise. Start off doing small amounts and if possible do it with a family member or friend the hardest thing is doing exercise alone. I normally go out with my stepdaughter and we chat as we go along.

Another thing to bear in mind is where you carry out exercise and what you do. The local parks, a wooded area, around a lake, something of that nature, try and keep away from heavy built up areas like town centres. These areas are not good motivation and are difficult to exercise in.

I am quiet lucky I only live a few hundred yards from the seafront in Southend so we walk there. Have a route easy at the start and build up. We started off walking about a mile, slowly at first and then a little brisker it’s amazing how quick you improve. We now do 3 miles at a brisk pace 2 times a week. On Friday’s we have an hours swimming.

Now I am also on bike 3 or 4 times week, it’s taken me a month to get to this position. But everybody is different but go at your own pace don’t over do it, but it is vital if you are to succeed.

The most important thing about beginning a diet is to have the correct mind set, and it must be something that you want to do. When I say the correct mind set, I mean you have to make it enjoyable otherwise you will fail before you start. Most people wouldn’t think that a diet can be pleasing, but I have always enjoyed my food and most people do, therefore the key to success is to make your menus pleasurable and this is the first step to being victorious in your quest to lose weight.

You have to balance your diet and you can eat some of the foods you enjoy but eating fish and chips, Chinese take away or pizza will not help you lose weight. It will, as you make guess increase your weight. We will come on to my menu’s in future blogs.

La Spice suggested that I share my diet with you; there are probably a lot of bloggers out there who, like me desperately need to lose weight (no offence to anyone). If you have read by blog you will have noticed that while I have told you how much weight I have lost, I have never actually stated what my weight was to begin with. Why did I never do this, well because was because I was embarrassed?

So here goes 4 weeks ago, my weight had crept up to a massive 17 stone 13lbs, and why was I embarrassed, well after 24 years in the army where I kept myself very fit I had ballooned, my clothes no longer fit me and I was in poor health. I was a PTI for part of my army career and becoming so overweight and unfit it something a man wants to boast about.

So after a earlier this year I decided to do something about it, but like most things it kept getting put off and it wasn’t until I saw the nurse the 4 weeks ago (for my asthma check) and she asked me if I wanted to do something about that I really took the bull by the horns and went for it.

So I have decided to follow La Spice’s advice if you wish to look at like that and post about my diet. Now you have the background we will start the real work.

Is he a man or machine, the American Michael Phelps, won two gold medals over night, bringing his total at these games to 5? He still remains on course to break Mark Spitz’s record of winning 7 gold medals in one Olympics games, his target for these games is 8 gold medals and who would bet against him.

In the last games he won a total of 6 gold medals and at the age of 23 who top say he won’t be destroying the opposition in the London games in 4 years time. I ask again his he man or machine?

Its official, at the great weigh in last night it was confirmed that I had lost another 4 pounds, bringing my total loss to 16lbs in just 4 weeks. The nurse was really pleased for and I’m quite happy myself. It will be another 4 weeks before I have so see her again and fingers crossed I hope to loss another stone.

I am under no illusion I know it will be difficult but if I stick to the diet and keep up the exercise then anything is possible.