The Click-Bait Generator (Part The First): Red-Hot Lesbo Action

BBC Worldwide have released details about the release of Doctor Who Series Ten, yer actual Peter Capaldi's final series as The Doctor, as a complete - and very expensive - set. It will be available in a variety of formats from Monday 13 November. The set features the documentary Becoming The Companion with exclusive interviews with Peter, Pearl and The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE) and narrated by The Goddess-Like Ingrid Oliver. Acclaimed writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce was back for Bill's first big adventure into the future - Smile - and Frank provides a unique insight into the writing and filming of the episode, along with 'the perks of the job.' In ... Who's There? we creep silently through this spooky adventure as writer Mike Bartlett and director Bill Anderson reveal the secrets of how to make a scary episode of Doctor Who. And, find out why they could not have chosen a more terrifying location. Allegedly. No writer had ever scripted episodes of both pre-1989 Doctor Who and the post-2005 series until this year. In Rona Munro - A Modern Classic, the writer of 1989's Survival, explores the similarities between her 'classic' and 'modern' episodes. Doctor Who: The Fan Show – After Shows sees Christel Dee (no, me neither) and a host of Doctor Who actors, writers and 'creatives' (whatever that means) discuss the making of series ten and, 'most importantly, assess the intensity of TARDIS crew's hairstyles along the way.' Sounds well-worth avoiding. There is also Doctor Who: The Finale Countdown, an interview with Pearl Mackie and unseen film footage from the actual concert its very self; the episode Knock Knock is also presented in binaural sound, which 'gives an immersive spatial sound experience for headphone listeners.' Which sounds against all laws of God and man, frankly. Plus, The Doctor: A New Kind Of Hero, a short documentary which accompanied The Return Of Doctor Mysterio, which looks at the character of The Doctor and how he is a unique sort of hero. And, there's a behind-the-scenes look at the series ten finale, various deleted scenes, audio commentaries ... Some good, hard, eye-watering buggery may - or my not - be involved in all this malarkey, too. Probably not. The release is available to pre-order as a Steelbook, DVD and Blu-ray sets. All of which are really expensive. So, you might want to think about claiming that your housing benefit cheque got lost in the post that week, or something.

Doctor Who has been awared an Ally Award by PinkNews for its long-standing policy of LGBT inclusiveness. The award was collected by Pearl Mackie accompanied by the outgoing executive producer Brian Minchin. Since the return of the series in 2005, Doctor Who has featured a string of LGBT characters. In the first series Russell Davies introduced the omnisexual Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman. This year The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE) gave us Bill Potts who became the series first openly gay companion. Speaking to PinkNews, Pearl said: 'It's lovely to be able to accept this Award on behalf of Doctor Who. I feel quite honoured to even have been invited, let alone for Doctor Who and the character of Bill. It's testament to how well she was received. I met a couple of young girls who were BAME and talked to me about how watching Bill on Doctor Who enabled them to come out and feel comfortable with their own sexuality. For me, that's a massive achievement. The thing that I liked most about Bill was that she wasn't grappling with her sexuality, she didn't need to come out, it wasn't an issue' It was always just about, "I'm gay and happy and this is who I am, this is who I like and this is who I'm in love with."' The PinkNews Awards celebrate the contributions of politicians, businesses and community groups towards LGBT equality in the UK and around the world. The event was attended by Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Sadiq Khan.

According to an - entirely non-fictitious and legitimate - 'source' of From The North at around 11am on Wednesday morning all the lights went off and then came back on at New Broadcasting House. It is From The North's 'insider's belief that 'the BBC may have [just] been rebooted.'

The return of Qi this week brought a whole plethora of media interviews with Sandi Toksvig. This one, in the Irish News, is probably the most interesting and, certainly, the most revealing.

TV Comedy Line Of The Week, number one. During a particularly loud and frantic (but, very funny) opening episode of the new - O - series of Qi, Sandi Toksvig was having considerable trouble with her panellists. There needed to be a retake after Sandi had difficulties with a prop toy boat whilst asking the question 'in theory, how fast can this boat sail?' Alan Davies asked if it was dependant on the wind. 'Yes, hold that thought and I'll do it again,' Sandi noted but, as soon as she picked up the prop and began speaking to camera, Bill Bailey was in like as shot, hitting his buzzer and bellowing 'something about wind!' 'How unusual,' Toksvig noted, pithily. 'A boy who came before I was ready!' before high-fiving fellow girly-guest, Claudia Whatsherface. As Sandi then prepared to try for take three, Alan, Bill and Phill Jupitas all made rather a fuss about being primed and ready to screw up her line for a third time. 'Say the words, baby,' Bill noted. 'Bill, shut the fuck up!' Sandi replied. 'Claudia, I'm going to bring out a yacht and you're going to say "is it something to do with the wind?"' 'God, it's like being at school,' joked Bill. '"Shut up and put your wine away!" Bovington-Gurney Primary was rough school!' The question was then asked, again, Claudia answered and the three lads immediately staged a mock walk-out. 'They've got some wine over here,' shouted one of them from off-set. 'You've been whinging for two hours!' replied Sandi. 'Do you know, people often say to me "what did Stephen say to you as he left?" and the truth is, he shook his head and said "you have no idea!"' Which was followed by some sympathy within The Sisterhood, Alan spending the rest of the episode making - some rather funny - wind-related comments and, after the revelation about how many synapses there are in the average human brain, Sandi noting, with specific reference to the boys, 'obviously, that's not every brain!' God, it's great to have the Qi back. As Qi überfan Victoria Coren Mitchell once noted when Have I Got News For You were having a bit of a rivalry-based sneer at their fellow BBC comedy panel show, 'Qi's still the only programme on television that assumes its audience can actually spell.'

TV Comedy Line Of The Week, number two, came from Friday's Have I Got News For You. Guest host Martin Clunes noting: 'This is the heated debate over a possible "No-deal Brexit" scenario. Insisting that the UK had to pay its fair share of the Brexit bill, Jean-Claude Junkers said: "If you are sitting at a bar and ordering twenty eight beers and then one of your colleagues leaves, it's okay, but they still have to pay." Which is all very well but fifty billion Euros for twenty eight pints? Who had the Peroni?!' Closely followed by: 'This was the apocalyptic precursor to The End Of Days according to Twitter, or "a bit of dust" according to scientists at the Met Office. Gusts of up to eighty miles an hour caused havoc at airports, one Ryan Air flight was even blown into the sky! According to The Times, "Bill Clinton had to postpone a visit to Northern Ireland because of Hurricane Ophelia." Which is a surprise, he normally enjoys getting blown across the Atlantic!'

Following a short piece on the last bloggerisationism update concerning last week's episode of Only Connect, regular From The North dear blog reader Mark only went and commented: 'I have to say, the highlight of that episode, was the divine Victoria Coren Mitchell adopting a Scouse accent in reference to the old Accrington Stanley milk advert!' Exactly. 'Also,' Mark added, 'the week before, when she claimed not to look good in jeans. Hmm, let us be the judge of that!' Well, indeed. So, especially for Mark his very self ...

Looks all right to this blogger (albeit, he has some considerable doubts that the young Victoria was ever that young; surely she was born at the age of nineteen when she made her TV debut?) And, if you still haven't had enough of Victoria, Mark, the Radio Times appear to share your/our obsession.

Speaking of Only Connect, one of the contestants on this week's episode was described by The Divine Victoria her very self as 'a qualified cheesemonger.' This blogger was entirely unaware that a) you could actually get a qualification for selling cheeses to the Middle Class masses and, b) that the specific vocation of cheesemongering still existed in the Twenty First Century since, like most 'normal' - ie. non Grunaid Morning Star-reading - people, he buys all of his cheese at a supermarket.

Keith Telly Topping, as it happens, got his usual 'one question' correct during the episode and, inevitably, it was the football one.

Meanwhile, for anyone that happens to be wondering ...

Glad we got that sorted out.
Next ...

The appearance of the legendary Stier twins in a recent episode of NCIS.

And, the debut of Solomon Grundy on Gotham.

The trailer for the forthcoming eleventh - and, probably, final - series of The X-Files is out. And it looks a bit flippin' tasty, dear blog reader.

A casting announcement for Game Of Thrones eighth - and definitely final - series has 'poured water' on a theory that an old character could return in future episodes according to the Independent. It has been widely reported this week that the German actor Marc Rissmann has joined the cast as a character named Harry Strickland, someone readers of the George RR Martin book series will remember as the leader of The Golden Company. The series seven finale saw Cersei seemingly agree to a temporary truce with Daenerys and Jon Snow in a bid to attempt to defeat the oncoming threat of The White Walkers - only for her to later reveal to her distressed brother, Jaime, that she plans to use this opportunity to her advantage with thanks to The Golden Company. This group has been mentioned before in an exchange with the Iron Bank's Tycho Nestoris (Mark Gatiss) who, after seeming content that the Lannister's debt had been paid, asked Cersei if he could assist her with anything. After mentioning that she needed help growing her army, she highlighted that Qyburn has been making 'overtures' to The Golden Company, a collection of ten thousand mercenary sellswords based in Essos. This isn't the first time they've been mentioned, either - in series four, Davos encouraged Stannis to hire the group stating that they had 'some of the most skilled fighters in the land.' Furthermore, Jorah used to fight as part of them. A popular fan theory suggested that the secret leader of the mercenary group would be Daario Naharis (Michael Huisman), the absent former love interest of Daenerys Targaryen. However, Rissmann's casting seems to put an end to this theory.

Here are the final and consolidated ratings for the Top Twenty Eight programmes broadcast in the week-ending Sunday 15 October 2017:-
1 Strictly Come Dancing - Sat BBC1 - 11.26m
2 The Great British Bake-Off - Tues Channel Four - 8.47m
3 Coronation Street - Mon ITV - 8.26m
4 Liar - Mon ITV - 7.94m
5 Emmerdale - Mon ITV - 6.96m
6 The Apprentice - Wed BBC1 - 6.90m
7 EastEnders - Tues BBC1 - 6.85m
8 Countryfile - Sun BBC1 - 6.725
9 Antiques Roadshow - Sun BBC1 - 6.66m
10 The X-Factor - Sat ITV - 6.56m
11 Doc Martin - Wed ITV - 6.24m
12 Victoria - Sun ITV - 5.79m
13 Casualty - Sat BBC1 - 5.64m
14 Our Girl: Nepal Tour - Tues BBC1 - 5.58m
15 Pointless Z-List Celebrities - Sat BBC1 - 5.06m
16= Six O'Clock News - Mon BBC1 - 4.91m
16= Have I Got News For You - Fri BBC1 - 4.91m
18 Cold Feet - Fri ITV - 4.85m
19 The Last Post - Sun BBC1 - 4.73m
20 BBC News - Sun BBC1 - 4.57m
21 Ambulance - Thurs BBC1 - 4.47m
22 Eat Well For Less? - Wed BBC1 - 4.29m
23 Holby City - Tues BBC1 - 4.211m
24 Bad Move - Wed ITV - 4.00m
25 An Hour To Catch A Killer With Trevor McDonald - Thurs ITV - 3.95m
26 Ten O'Clock News - Tues BBC1 - 3.92m
27 Match Of The Day - Sat BBC1 - 3.88m
28 Mrs Brown's Boys - Sat BBC1 - 3.63m
These consolidated figures - published weekly by the British Audience Research Bureau - include all viewers who watched programmes live and on various forms of catch-up TV and video-on-demand during the seven days after initial broadcast. They do not, however, include those who watched on BBC's iPlayer or ITV Player via their computers. The Sunday night Strictly Come Dancing results episode had a consolidated audience of 10.1 million punters. Given that the ratings for the opening four episodes plus the launch show of this year's competition have all been (marginally) up on the equivalent episodes from 2016, with each passing week that exceptionally silly girl at the Gruniad Morning Star claiming, before a single episode had even been broadcast, that Strictly Come Dancing was 'in a fight for its survival' looks more and more ludicrous. As with virtually everything else printed in the Gruniad Morning Star, frankly. The X-Factor - which, despite some of its lowest ever audiences during this series probably isn't 'in a fight for its survival' either, at least not yet - drew a total of 6.12 million viewers for its Sunday results episode. After the, generally appalled critical savaging that the opening episode of Lee Nelson's Porridge remake received, the second episode of the sitcom dropped out of BBC1's top thirty most viewed programmes completely, thus achieving final viewing figures of less than 3.63 million. Which, sounds about right. On BBC2, the highest-rated show was Russia With Simon Reeve with 3.09 million. University Challenge drew 2.53 million, as did Louis Theroux: Dark States, Dragons' Den had 2.39 million, Gardeners' World, 2.18 million and Mastermind, 2.02 million. Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two was watched by two million exactly, Saving Lives At Sea by 1.94 million, both Only Connect and The Apprentice - You're Fired! by 1.74 million, The Detectives: Murder On The Streets by 1.80 million, Coast: The Great Guide, by 1.60 million, The Human Body: The Secrets Of Your Life Revealed by 1.53 million, Mock The Week by 1.52 million, W1A by 1.50 million and Russia 1971: Countdown To Revolution by 1.49 million. Wretched, unfunny waste-of-oxygen Upstart Crow attracted 1.41 million people who, frankly, wouldn't know a joke if it got up and gave them a haircut. Channel Four's highest-rated broadcast was, of course, The Great British Bake Off. Gogglebox (3.02 million),Z-List Celebrity Hunted (2.79 million) and Grand Designs (1.93 million) followed. First Dates had 1.86 million viewers, Location, Location, Location, 1.76 million, The Undateables, 1.75 million, The Last Leg With Adam Hills, 1.69 million, The Supervet, 1.57 million, Superfoods: The Real Story, 1.56 million, The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, 1.49 million and Educating Greater Manchester, 1.44 million. The fifth episode of Philip K Dick's Impossible Dreams was seen by eight hundred and eighty three thousand and Britain's Ancient Tracks With Tony Robinson by six hundred and sixty four thousand. Channel Five's top performer was The Yorkshire Vet, with an audience of 1.69 million. Paddington Station 24/7, Can't Pay? We'll Take It Away!, the movie We're The Millers and Alaska: A Year In The Wild rounded-off Five's list with audiences of 1.64 million, 1.45 million, 1.42 million and 1.24 million. Britain By Bike With Larry & George Lamb was watched by nine hundred and thirty thousand and The EastEnders Murders: True Crime, by eight hundred and ninety thousand. Following the latest the international break, the return of some proper footie on the Sky Sports Premier League channel brought audiences of four hundred and forty five thousand for Saturday's game between The Liverpool Alabama Yee-Haws and The Scum (most of whom, if they weren't fast asleep by half-time, probably regretted tuning-in to one of the worst goalless draws in the history of the game). Nine hundred and seventy nine thousand insomniacs watched the boredom on Sky Sports Main Event. Meanwhile, Sunday's - far more exciting - two-two draw between Southampton and yer actual Keith Telly Topping's beloved (though still, for the moment at least, unsellable) Newcastle United has two hundred and three thousand, plus six hundred and ten thousand on Main Event. Apart from Premier League action, the dramatic World Cup Qualifier between Wales and The Republic Of Ireland was watched by eight hundred and seventeen thousand on Main Event and an additional two hundred and sixty eight thousand on Sky Sports Football. One of the big Championship derbies of the weekend, Derby County against Nottingham Forest drew thee hundred and seven thousand on Main Event and eighty two thousand on Sky Sports Football. Gillette Soccer Saturday was seen by one hundred and eight nine thousand on the Premier League channel, two hundred and eighty six thousand on Sky Sports Football and three hundred and eighty thousand on Sky Sports News HQ. On Sky Sports Mix, Live NFL Red Zone had fifty five thousand and Fight Night: Joshua Versus Klitschko, twenty six thousand. On Sky Sports Cricket the channel's highest audience of the week was live coverage of the South Africa Versus Bangladesh ODI with thirty six thousand followed by The Best Of Bumble which had thirty two thousand. Get the car started. Singapore Grand Prix Highlights was viewed by eighteen thousand punters on Sky Sports F1. Live European Rugby attracted twenty eight thousand viewers on Sky Sports Arena and an additional eighty two thousand watching the simultcast on Sky Sports Action. Sky 1's weekly top-ten was headed by the return for a new series of the popular US sitcom Modern Family with eight hundred and thirty thousand viewers. The Russell Howard Hour had six hundred and twenty three thousand. Russell Howard used to be really funny when he was Mad Frankie Boyle's straight-man on Mock The Week. But, that was a long, long time ago dear blog reader. Worthless, rancid lake of festering spew A League Of Their Own, attracted six hundred and eleven thousand punters - every single one of whom needs to take a good look in the mirror for any remote signs of common sense, dignity or self-worth. The equally unfunny Stella drew six hundred thousand. For shame, people of Great Britain, for shame. The Last Ship was seen by four hundred and sixty eight thousand. It's not all bad news, however. The second episode of Sing: Ultimate A Cappella did not feature at all in Sky 1's top ten list, meaning that it must have had an audience of fewer than two hundred and fifty five thousand (or, around half of the audience that watched - appallingly bad - the opening episode). So, it seems that the British viewing public does, sometimes, recognise a stinking turd when they are presented with one. Sky Arts' Mario Lanza: The Best Of Everything was viewed by sixty three thousand viewers. The documentary The Legendary Bing Crosby drew forty four thousand punters. By way of contrast, Punk: Attitude was seen by thirty three thousand. Sky Atlantic's list was topped by episode six of Tin Star with one hundred and ninety six thousand. Ray Donovan had one hundred and seventy seven thousand, the third part of The Deuce, one hundred and sixty thousand, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, one hundred and fifty six thousand, the second episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, eighty eight thousand (an 'uge sixty per cent drop off in the audience from the opening episode) and the latest Game Of Thrones repeat, seventy seven thousand. On Sky Living, Chicago Fire drew by five hundred and thirteen thousand whilst Law & Order: True Crime had two hundred and seventy two thousand. How To Get Away With Murder attracted one hundred and ninety five thousand. Split was watched by four hundred and fourteen thousand punters on Sky Cinema Premiere. Midsomer Murders was ITV3's top-rated drama (six hundred and eight thousand viewers). Foyle's War was seen by five hundred and ninety thousand. Coverage of the World Cup Qualifier between The Netherlands and Sweden was seen by seven hundred and sixty seven thousand on ITV4. The movies Payback and GoldenEye drew three hundred and thirty six thousand and three hundred and twenty nine thousand, respectively. Hornblower had two hundred and ninety two thousand. ITV2's top-ten was headed by full-of-its-own-importance bucket of foul-smelling faeces, Z-List Celebrity Juice, seen by 1.16 million sad, crushed victims of society. Vera headed ITV Encore's top ten with sixty eight thousand viewers, followed by Scott & Bailey and Poirot (both fifty six thousand) and DCI Banks (fifty one thousand). Shallow, appalling bucket of diarrhoea, The Only Way Is Essex, was viewed by nine hundred and eight thousand of exactly the sort of specimens who enjoy such risible and ugly exercises in z-list-celebrity-by-non-entity on ITVBe. Similarly tripe conceit, The Real Housewives Of Cheshire was seen by five hundred and ninety one thousand. Broken Britain in a sentence, dear blog reader. BBC4's list was headed by Concorde: A Supersonic Story (six hundred and eighty seven thousand) and two episodes of The Viet'Nam War (five hundred and ninety four thousand and five hundred and seventy one thousand respectively). Britain's Lost Masterpieces had five hundred and sixty one thousand. Ocean Giants drew five hundred and fifty five thousand, Scandi-noir drama Beck, four hundred and fifty nine thousand and Tunes For Tyrants: Music & Power With Suzy Klein, four hundred and fifty two thousand. Wild China was seen by four hundred and thirty two thousand. 5USA's latest Chicago PD episode was viewed by five hundred and ninety six thousand punters, NCIS: Los Angeles by five hundred and thirty one thousand, Castle by four hundred thousand, Bull by three hundred and eighty three thousand and Longmire by three hundred and twenty eight thousand. On Five Star, Home & Away scored four hundred and thirty nine thousand. NCIS and Braddock: Missing In Action III topped the most-watched programme list of CBS Action (ninety four thousand each). Medium attracted seventy eight thousand on CBS Drama. For FOX's sake, The Gifted's second episode was watched by six hundred and thirty seven thousand. American Horror Story: Cult had two hundred and seventy six thousand and Lucifer, two hundred and thirty five thousand. Murder In The First was watched by one hundred and fifty nine thousand viewers. The second series of Private Eyes continued with two hundred and twenty six thousand viewers on The Universal Channel, followed by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and NCIS (two hundred and seventeen thousand and one hundred and nine thousand, respectively). On Dave, the return of Red Dwarf XII give the channel its highest audience of the year so far, 1.20 million punters. Smeggin' Hell! Funny as a geet ugly boil on ones chap, Taskmaster was watched by six hundred and thirty five thousand very undiscerning punters. Another example of laughless tripe, Zapped was seen by four hundred and five thousand. Live At The Apollo, was watched by three hundred and twenty eight thousand and Qi XL, by two hundred and fifty seven thousand. Drama's Father Brown attracted five hundred and sixty three thousand viewers and Inspector George Gently, four hundred and fifty four thousand. New Tricks was seen by three hundred and sixty six thousand The Brokenwood Mysteries by three hundred and fourteen thousand. Normal Drama Channel staples, Death In Paradise (one hundred and seventy one thousand) and Inspector George Gently (one hundred and twenty one thousand) also appeared in the weekly top-ten of Alibi. Sony TV's weekly list was headed by Orange Is The New Black (twenty seven thousand). Yesterday's repeat runs of One Foot In The Grave and Open All Hours continued with one hundred and eighty nine thousand and one hundred and seventy eight thousand respectively, whilst Secrets Of Britain attracted one hundred and seventy seven thousand and The Churchills, one hundred and sixty two thousand. Your TV's Cold Justice brought in eighty six thousand. On the Discovery Channel, Garage Rehab was seen by one hundred and eighty four thousand viewers. Ed Stafford: Left For Dead had one hundred and twenty seven thousand, Misfit Garage, one hundred and fifteen thousand, Alaska: The Last Frontier, one hundred and seven thousand and lots of big shouty men with big shouty beards in Gold Rush, eighty nine thousand. Wor Geet Canny Robson Green's Ultimate Catch had sixty eight thousand. From The North cult fave Wheeler Dealers appeared in the weekly top tens of both Discovery Shed (thirty seven thousand) and Discovery Turbo (twenty six thousand). Discovery History's Massive Machines headed the top ten with twenty seven thousand. Egypt's Mystery Chamber attracted twenty four thousand. On Discovery Science, How Do They Do It? was seen by forty three thousand. On Quest, Salvage Hunters was watched by three hundred and twenty six thousand. Pick's Warehouse Thirteen had an audience of three hundred and twenty four thousand. National Geographic's list was headed by Air Crash Investigations and Viking Apocalypse. They were watched by one hundred and thirty two thousand and forty three thousand respectively. National Geographic Wild's Snakes In The City was viewed by forty three thousand. The History Channel's most-seen programmes were WW2 Treasure Hunters (one hundred and thirty thousand) and X Company (seventy thousand). The Conquerors: Roman Vice on the Military History channel was seen by thirty nine thousand and True Monsters by thirty two thousand. Jo Frost On Britain's Killer Kids, The Murder Of Laci Peterson, Unusual Suspects and Motive To Murder were Crime & Investigation's top-rated programmes with one hundred and eleven thousand, sixty two thousand, forty six thousand and forty three thousand blood-and-snots-lovers, respectively. American Monster, Britain's Deadly Women, Guilty Rich and Miss Of Death headed Investigation Discovery's list (ninety two thousand, fifty nine thousand, fifty nine thousand and fifty seven thousand respectively). GOLD's - seemingly never-ending - repeat run of Mrs Brown's Boys had two hundred and twelve thousand. Comedy Central's largest audience of the week was for Impractical Jokers with two hundred and sixty five thousand. On More4, Outlander was the highest-rated programme with six hundred and nine thousand. Britain's Big Freeze had three hundred and fifty five thousand, Nine-Nine-Nine: On The Frontline, three hundred and forty four thousand and Secret History: Return Of The Black Death, three hundred and twenty thousand. E4's list was topped by Hollyoakes 1.02 million). The latest episode of The Exorcist, headed Syfy's top-ten with two hundred and twenty five thousand whilst Blood Drive was watched by one hundred and thirty one thousand. The Horror Channel's weekly list was topped by several episode of Star Trek: Voyager - horrible, certainly, but horror? Scotland Yard, one of this blogger's favourite movies Dulcima and Broken Journey topped Talking Pictures list, with fifty seven thousand, thirty nine thousand and thirty seven thousand respectively. The A-Team had two hundred and thirty seven thousand on Spike and, the movie The Legend Of Hercules, two hundred and twenty six thousand. South Pacific was viewed by twenty eight thousand on Eden, whilst Bahama Blue had twenty four thousand. Alaska: The Last Frontier was the Animal Planet's most-watched programme with thirty nine thousand. MasterChef Australia on W attracted three hundred and twenty eight thousand punters. True Crime's Law & Order was seen by sixty one thousand viewers and the awkwardly misogynistic The Devil You Know by forty five thousand. On True Entertainment, Taggart, was watched by one hundred and forty two thousand punters who enjoy a good marrrrdarrr. It was seen by one hundred and twenty eight thousand. Rick Stein's Food Heroes drew seventy five thousand on Good Food. TLC's list was headed by Cake Boss (two hundred and thirty one thousand). Shameful loose stool water Geordie Shore on MTV was viewed by five hundred and six thousand pure total glakes whilst equally worthless Teen Mom 2 had two hundred and fifty eight thousand. Paranormal Witness and Ghost Adventures were seen by two hundred and seventy eight thousand and two hundred and sixteen thousand on Really. For a channel with that name, they show an awful lot of programmes about non-existent crud. Be Cool Scooby-Doo! had one hundred and two thousand viewers on Boomerang. Plane Resurrection topped PBS America's weekly list with fourteen thousand. On Cbeebies, Sarah & Duck was seen by five hundred and twenty one thousand, Go Jetters by five hundred and nineteen thousand, Peter Rabbit by five hundred and four thousand and Apple Tree House by four hundred and eighty five thousand. Alvinnn!!! & The Chipmunks had one hundred and forty two thousand on the Pop Channel. On AMC, Fear The Walking Dead was watched by twelve thousand. Pawn Stars drew ninety nine thousand punters on Blaze. Keeping Up With The Kardashians attracted one hundred and eighty six thousand viewers on E! whilst Total Bellas had seventy nine thousand. Project Runway pulled in one hundred and forty three thousand on Lifetime. Bollywood Movie was watched by sixteen thousand on Venus TV. Latest Hits drew fourteen thousand on Zing. The Michael English Show attracted thirty five thousand on Keep It Country. Airwolf was seen by thirty six thousand on Forces TV. Queen Victoria's Children attracted fifty one thousand on London Live, whilst one of the very worst movie remakes in cinema history, the Sylvester Stallone massacre of Get Carter was watched by thirty eight thousand very undiscerning Londoners. Arctic Blast drew one hundred and fifty six thousand to the Movies 4 Men channel.

It has been credited with helping solve some of the country's most notorious crimes. But, after thirty three years, Crimewatch has served its time and paid its debt to society, the BBC has announced. The programme is being cancelled to 'make way for other programming,' the corporation said, though it added that it would broadcast more of the daytime sister edition, Crimewatch Roadshow. Nick Ross - don't have nightmares - one of the programme's original hosts, said that he was 'astonished' Crimewatch had lasted as long as it had, given the changes in television viewing habits in recent years. 'It's not a busted format, the format worked. But it worked of its age. The world has changed beneath its feet,' he said, after the decision was announced on Tuesday. He referred to the 'decay of old-fashioned, linear television' and the increasing trend of recording programmes and watching them later. 'What is the point of a live appeal show? It has to be live, that's the way it works. And if you watch it the following day, there's no one on the phones,' he said. Ross added that when Crimewatch was launched in 1984, television was one-directional. 'We spoke to the audience, the audience weren't expected to speak back and this was the first we'd tried anything truly interactive. We were on tenterhooks, genuinely so. The first live programme we did, we had no idea if anybody would ring at all. No one had ever tried this. We had no idea whether – if anybody did ring – it would be a hoax, whether anybody would recognise any clues, whether they'd be wasting police time, whether this thing could work at all. As I recall, the Guardian thought we were a bunch of Coppers' Narks and this was not a good thing at all to do. The cops thought we were all a bunch of left-wingers and didn't trust us. Just one police chief constable was onside.' The programme's audience has declined from five to six million for episodes in 2002 to about two million in recent years, the BBC said. 'Part of the bigger picture is that it doesn't reach the audience it once did,' a spokeswoman said. She added that it was now felt the format was better suited to daytime television, where the sister programme, which goes out five days a week, four weeks of the year, reaches about five million people per week. It will now get an increased run of six weeks. The show, which reconstructs unsolved crimes in an attempt to gather information from the public, was relaunched in September 2016 and was most recently presented by Jeremy Vine and Tina Daheley. Sue Cook and Ross hosted the first edition, which featured the murder of sixteen-year-old Colette Aram, who disappeared as she walked to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, in October 1983. The crimes featured on the show over the past thirty three years have included the murders of Rhys Jones, Jamie Bulger and Damilola Taylor, as well as the disappearances of Madeleine McCann, Suzy Lamplugh and Claudia Lawrence. The Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents rank and file officers, said that the decision was 'a shame.' Its lead on operational policing, Simon Kempton, said that the programme had been 'brilliant at allowing forces airtime to a wide audience.' He said that 'strong relationships' had been built between the show's producers and police. 'Crimewatch helped to raise the profile of thousands of incidents over the years, as well as show the public the complex side of policing and solve crime. For those wider appeals which needed national coverage, it was great and there has been nothing else that has been able to give cases such a wide reach, but if there aren't the audience figures and people aren't watching it then you have to move with the times.' A BBC spokeswoman said: 'We believe the successful Crimewatch Roadshow format in daytime is the best fit for the brand going forward and we will increase the number of episodes to make two series a year. We are incredibly proud of Crimewatch and the great work it has done over the years and the work Crimewatch Roadshow will continue to do and this move will also allow us to create room for new innovative programmes in peak time on BBC1.'

This blogger seen many, many (many) grim, overcast and miserable days at Stately Telly Topping Manor over the years dear blog reader but Monday of this week was, this blogger believes, the first time that the snot-grey sky had ever exhibited a vaguely yellowy tinged to it. It was either a portent of the fast approaching Armageddon with the asteroids and the hidden planets and the sound of the seventh trumpet blasting in the firmament and all that or, second option, someone had been releasing mustard gas down in Waalsend. One or the other.

In actual fact, according to the BBC, an unusual 'reddish' sky and red-looking sun was reported across many parts of England on Monday. The phenomenon was initially seen in the West of England and South Wales before spreading to other areas. Including, by mid-afternoon, the sky above Stately Telly Topping Manor. BBC weather presenter Simon King said that it was due to the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia dragging in tropical air and dust from the Sahara. He added that debris from forest fires in Portugal and Spain was also playing a part. The dust has caused shorter wavelength blue light to be scattered, making it appear red. He said: 'Ophelia originated in the Azores where it was a hurricane and as it tracked its way northwards it dragged in tropical air from the Sahara.' This meant that dust from the Sahara was brought with it, he said. 'The dust gets picked up into the air and goes high up into the atmosphere and that dust has been dragged high up in the atmosphere above the UK,' King explained. The particles in the air cause blue light to scatter, leaving longer-wavelength red light to shine through. The Met Office said that the 'vast majority' of the dust was as a result of forest fires in Iberia, which have sent debris into the air and that has been dragged North by Ophelia. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. One sincerely hopes that Ophelia now gets, thee, to a nunnery at the earliest opportunity.

Alleged North Korean hackers allegedly targeted a British television company allegedly making an alleged drama about the country, it has emerged. North Korea itself isn't alleged, incidentally, that definitely exists  it's on maps and everything. The series - due to be written by an Oscar-nominated screenwriter - has now been shelved. In August 2014, Channel Four announced what it claimed would be a new 'bold and provocative' drama series. Titled Opposite Number, the drama's plot involved a British nuclear scientist taken prisoner in North Korea. The production firm involved - Mammoth Screen - subsequently had its computers attacked. However, they claimed that the project has not moved forward because of a failure to secure funding rather than them being chicken-shit scared of North Koreans. One or two people even believed them. North Korean officials had responded 'in anger' when details of the TV series were first revealed. Pyongyang described the plot as 'a slanderous farce' as it called on the British government to pull the series in order to avoid damaging relations. Sadly, the British government did not take the opportunity to inform the Pyongyang that, by and large, governments do not get to decide what dramas productions companies make. And, the ones that do, really, should be kicked in the knob until they stop and promise never to do so again. The North Koreans did more than protest though - they, allegedly, hacked into the computer networks of the company behind the show. The incident was first reported by the New York Times, which cited Channel Four as the main target. However, the BBC claimed that it was actually Mammoth Screen itself which was hit by hackers.

The attack did not, seemingly, inflict any damage but the presence of North Korean hackers on the system allegedly 'caused widespread alarm' over what they 'might' do. Like, you know, rewrite some of the scripts for the next series' of Victoria and Poldark? Or, perhaps, reveal to the harsh glare of public ridicule exactly who was responsible for commissioning the company's most memorably crap flop, Bonekickers? 'They were running around with their hair on fire,' a - nameless, and therefore probably fictitious - TV executive 'from another company' snitched to the BBC like a filthy stinkin' Copper's Nark, describing the level of concern. British intelligence was, the article claims, 'also aware' of the attack. The concern was 'compounded' because Sony Pictures experienced a significant cyber-attack in November 2014. Although, all that malarkey ended up - infamously - 'exposing' was the BBC's hitherto secret 'glorious eight year plan' for Doctor Who and that BBC Worldwide never listen to a bloody word that The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE) says. Allegedly. A group called the Guardians Of Peace claimed it was behind the Sony hack but US officials said they believed North Korea was responsible. That attack was also in retaliation for a drama - in that case the planned release of the film The Interview, a - really not very funny at all - alleged 'comedy' in which the North Korean leader was assassinated. The studio had its e-mails stolen and publicly released but also had a significant portion of its computer network destroyed by the attackers. The film was eventually released online amid concerns that cinemas would not show it because of threats. It also led to a strong reaction from the Obama White House, including the imposition of sanctions against North Korea. There was no commensurate complaint from the British government, despite officials knowing that a UK company had also been targeted - although not affected in the same way as Sony. The cyber-threats from North Korea have not stopped. Its hackers have proved increasingly aggressive and adept, targeting banks to steal money and media in South Korea. British officials also believe that North Korea was behind the Wannacry ransomware which struck around the world in May, with significant parts of the NHS being affected, although there has been no official response from the UK government to that incident.

By the way, if any alleged North Korean dear blog readers with hacking capabilities have taken - understandable - offence at this blogger's considered opinion that the Great Leader's foreign policy appears to be an act of compensation for the fact that he's, probably, got a very small willy and want to take down From The North in a punishment beating of major proportions, don't bother yourselves, guys. Seriously, this blog's only has a daily readership of about three thousand hits - and most of those are from people who've stumbled in here accidentally whilst, you know, looking for porn. This blogger is sure you've got far bigger fish to fry.

Meanwhile, North Korea's deputy UN ambassador has warned this week that the situation on the Korean peninsula 'has reached the touch-and-go point and a nuclear war may break out any moment.' So ... that's good to know. It's been nice knowing all of you, dear blog readers.

As if all that shit isn't bad enough, here's a bit more news to make you want to reach for a handy tin hat. Tiangong 1, which translates to 'Heavenly Palace,' is China's first space laboratory, launched in September 2011, serving as a prototype for a permanent space station that it aims to eventually build and launch. But six years after it first went into orbit, the seven-tonne laboratory is soon expected to meet a 'fiery and uncontrolled' end, hurtling down to Earth and crashing somewhere on the planet. No one knows exactly where. In September 2016, Chinese officials confirmed that they had extremely lost control of the space lab and it would crash into Earth 'sometime in the latter half of 2017.' In May, China told the United Nations that the lab would re-enter Earth's atmosphere 'between October 2017 and April 2018.' Much of the space lab, which measures eleven metres in length, is expected to burn-up during re-entry. But, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist from Harvard University, told the Gruniad Morning Star that pieces weighing up to one hundred kilograms 'could' make it to the Earth's surface. Fantastically imprecise word, 'could', is it not? Where exactly the craft will fall is, McDowell added, 'anyone's guess.' Oh great. That's really helpful, mate, thanks for the information. Even slight changes in atmospheric conditions could - that word again - alter the landing site 'from one continent to the next,' McDowell told the Gruniad. 'You really can't steer these things,' he added. 'Even a couple of days before it re-enters, we probably won't know better than six or seven hours, plus or minus, when it's going to come down. Not knowing when it's going to come down translates as not knowing where it's going to come down.' Uncontrolled crashes of larger spacecraft, whilst rare, have happened before. The Soviet Salyut Seven space station crashed to Earth in 1991, while NASA's Skylab space station fell over Western Australia in 1979. Although given that about two-thirds of Earth's surface is ocean, it should be noted that there's a better-than-sixty per cent chance that if the vehicle doesn't burn up in the atmosphere and does come crash-landing back to Earth, it might be a splashdown rather than a ker-splat-down. Still, that means there's a thirty odd per cent change that it it's going to hit somewhere solid so it's probably worth thinking about investing in that nuclear bunker you've been debating whether to buy or not ever since the North Koreans started getting a bit lippy and Trump got himself elected. Oh and remember, if you do buy one, canned goods are still edible after a considerable time, but 'long-term' milk is barely consumable even on the day of purchase. Or, indeed, any time. China launched Tiangong 2, its second experimental station, in September 2016. China is aiming to have a permanently manned space station in orbit by 2020. The 2011 launch of Tiangong 1 was regarded as a geopolitically significant event, part of China's broader space programme through which it wants to assert its emergence as a new superpower. Tiangong 1 ended its service in March after it had 'comprehensively fulfilled its historical mission,' Wu Ping, deputy director of the manned space engineering office, was quoted as saying at a news conference by Xinhua, China's state news agency. The lab had served as a base for space experiments for four and a half years, two years longer than originally planned. It hosted two three-person crews, including China's first female astronaut, Liu Yang, in 2012. The station has been descending gradually since its service ended. More recently, it has started to fall faster, reaching the denser layers of Earth's atmosphere, the Gruniad reported. The odds that the crashing craft will damage aviation or ground activities is 'very low,' China told the United Nations, adding that it would 'closely monitor' Tiangong 1's descent. As will everyone else, one trusts. For spacecraft that remain in control, scientists carefully guide their re-entry to a place on Earth called 'the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility,' a four kilometre-deep spot in the ocean known as the 'spacecraft cemetery' about three thousand kilometres off the Eastern coast of New Zealand and the same distance from Antarctica. As of June 2016, more than two hundred and sixty spacecraft had crashed at the cemetery since 1971, according to Popular Science.

One would imagine that the schedulers at ITV3 and ITV4 got their collective heads together once in a while to avoid any potential conflicts of viewer interest. Like, for instance, at this very moment the two sister channels are broadcasting mid-afternoon repeats of Inspector Morse and The Sweeney (respectively) at the same time. Because, if ever two dramas were likely to have remarkably similar audience profiles, those two are textbook examples. Albeit, if you time it just right and flick from one channel to another you can, literally, watch John Thaw age before your very eyes. Which, admittedly, is quite funny.

One of the Morse episodes shown this week was the excellent Driven To Distraction from 1990. If you've never seen it before it's a good one for several reasons; there's a really good Anthony Mingella script, Kevin Whately gets more than his usual fair share of pithy one-liners, there are rather good sinister turns by Patrick Malahide (who isn't the murderer) and David Ryall (who is) and an empathic - and, ahead of its time, feminist - part for the always excellent Mary Jo Randle. But, above all else, it's mostly notable to Julia Lane wearing what is, probably the shortest, tightest mini-skirt in the history of television. Which was very nice then and remains so, now.

And, speaking of nice bottoms, an interview with Katherine Ryan in the Metro this week - to tie in with the start of her and Jimmy Carr's horrifying-looking new dating show, Your Face Or Mine - included a tiny throw-away one-liner relating to the best celebrity-related 'fake news' story from this year so far ...

Buffy The Vampire Slayer actor Nicholas Brendon was arrested - again - last week, this time for allegedly attacking his girlfriend. The forty six-year-old, who is best known - well, let's be honest, only known - for his portrayal of Xander Harris on the popular long-running cult drama, was in Southern California when the incident took place. Brendon and an unnamed woman were at a Palm Springs hotel bar on 12 October when she got up to go back to their room, TMZ reports, sighting information snitched to them by law enforcement. Brendon, who was reportedly drunk at the time of the incident, allegedly sat her back down by yanking at her arm. The woman pushed back and went to leave again, when Brendon allegedly pulled her by the hair. Which is a bit of a twatty thing to do under any circumstances, frankly. A hotel employee then called the police, who arrived post-haste, arrested Brendon and took him into custody for domestic violence and violating a protective order against the girlfriend in question. This is not the first time that the actor has been in big trouble with The Law. In 2015, he pleaded extremely guilty to a misdemeanour charge after being accused of choking his then girlfriend in a hotel room. According to E! News, the woman stopped by Brendon's New York hotel room to 'drop off some of his personal belongings.' After refusing to let her leave, the actor allegedly pinned her against the wall and choked her in an argument 'related to his mobile phone and keys.' That year, he was arrested a total of four times, including once for another drunken hotel incident when he caused a reported four hundred and fifty dollars worth of damages to a room and refused to pay his three hundred and eighty bucks bills for food and beverages. Later, he entered rehab on two separate occasions to treat depression, alcoholism and substance abuse issues. This blogger interviewed Brendon in 2001 for one of the editions of the book, Slayer and found him to be pleasant and sociable. Though, the fact that he wasn't drunk at the time was, this blogger was told afterwards, something of a rarity at the time. Keith Telly Topping has to be honest, dear blog reader, he has gone way past the 'feeling sorry for Nick stage' - I fully realise that may sound more than a little harsh and this blogger is sorry for that but, firstly, Keith Telly Topping is not over keen on any man who assaults women. But, more importantly, Nick Brendon's entire life has been a very public train-wreck for the best part of the last decade. If he doesn't know that he needs help by now - in fact, way before now - then no one else can decide that for him. We've said all this the last half-dozen times he's got himself nicked for something, haven't we? There reaches a point where 'one hopes he gets the help he needs this time' has to change to 'shouldn't he have got the help he, very obviously, needs about three arrests ago?' Anyway, dear blog reader, here's Brendon's latest mug-shot to add to his - already impressively large - collection.

And now, dear blog reader, the story that just keeps giving ...

Billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers deliberately concealed and destroyed evidence of unlawful activity at the the Sun and the Scum of the World to cover up the involvement of senior executives, alleged victims of phone-hacking have claimed. The allegations were made at a high court hearing on Wednesday in the latest stage of phone-hacking proceedings against the Sun and the disgraced and disgraceful Scum of the World, shut down in shame and ignominy several years ago due to the naughty and illegal phone-hacking ways of members of its staff. David Sherborne, the barrister representing phone-hacking victims, told the court that the alleged concealment and destruction led to the 'purging of evidence of unlawful activity' at the Scum of the World and the Sun, and 'the involvement or approval of senior executives in the unlawful activities and subsequent cover-up.' He claimed that News Group had made 'substantial payments' to former employees and contractors convicted of criminal offences in exchange for confidentiality and not revealing the 'scale of the illegality within NGN,' while also deleting e-mails 'in a targeted way.' Sherborne also accused senior News Group editors, including well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Rebekah Brooks, Gordon Smart, Dominic Mohan and Victoria Newton, of commissioning private investigators. Well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Brooks is currently the chief executive of News UK and a previous editor of both the Sun and the Scum of the World, while Smart left his role as the Sun's deputy editor last year. Mohan is a former editor of the Sun and Newton is the current editor of the Sun on Sunday. Sherborne made the claims as he pushed for News Group to release more e-mails and documents. News Group has not admitted to the allegations. Last month News Group settled seventeen new cases of phone-hacking and illegally obtaining personal information, including the alleged comedian Les Dennis, the footballer Jonathan Woodgate and the Coronation Street actors Samia Ghadie, Kym Marsh and Alan Halsall. These cases were due to be part of a trial that would have publicly revealed,for the first time, allegations of phone-hacking at the Sun - something which News Group has always denied - and continues to deny. The seventeen cases were the first tranche of ninety one new claims of phone-hacking, illegally obtaining personal information against News Group and other naughty and nefarious skulduggery and bad shenanigans. Sherborne revealed in court that News Group had now settled more cases, with fifty eight remaining outstanding, including high-profile individuals such as Sir Elton John. A trial is earmarked for January for a collection of the outstanding cases. News Group has not yet admitted to any unlawful behaviour at the Sun as part of the settlements, which are likely to be worth millions of pounds. The hacking hearing took place as the Competition and Markets Authority starts a six-month investigation into Twenty First Century FOX's proposed takeover of Sky. FOX is, of course, controlled by billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch and his grubby spawn, James The Small and Lachlan. The Murdoch family also controls News Corp, the parent company of News Group. Last week, in a separate case, News Group snivellingly apologised in court and agreed to pay 'uge damages to a former army intelligence officer whose computer and e-mails were hacked. News Group admitted that a private investigations firm had hacked the computer of Ian Hurst and that its boss, Jonathan Rees, had then sent intercepted information to the newspaper publisher. Lawyers for News Group said the company offered its 'sincerest and unreserved apologies' to Hurst and his family and accepted 'vicarious liability' for the hacking. News Group will pay 'substantial' damages to Hurst and cover his legal costs.

The board of Trinity Mirra and its legal team were 'aware' of hacking and did not stop it at the company's newspapers including the Daily Mirra, Sunday Mirra and the Sunday People, alleged victims of phone-hacking have claimed. The TV presenter John Leslie, the actor Ralf Little and the former Z-List Celebrity Big Brother-type person Chantelle Houghton are claiming aggravated damages on the basis that Trinity Mirra's board and legal team were 'aware' of hacking from 2002 at the earliest and certainly by 2007 and then took steps to cover it up. At a high court hearing in London, David Sherborne, acting for the claimants, argued that 'a series of comments' in witness statements from 'other hacking cases,' The Leveson Inquiry and 'internal probes' demonstrated that directors at Trinity Mirra and the legal team were aware of the 'habitual or widespread use of these unlawful information-gathering activities' and 'could have' prevented them 'from being carried out.' These included comments from the broadcaster Jeremy Paxman claiming that, in 2002, the then editor of the Daily Mirra, the odious oily twat Piers Morgan, had talked about hacking at a lunch hosted by Sir Victor Blank, then the chairman of Trinity Mirra. Sherborne said: 'Unsurprisingly, the discovery that knowledge of illegal activities at the highest level of a public limited company - and within the legal department - and their deliberate concealment has severely aggravated the distress and injury to the claimants' feelings caused by the illegal activities themselves. It is aggravation of entirely different quality and magnitude.' Lawyers for Trinity Mirra said that the evidence presented 'did not show' that company executives or their legal team were aware of hacking. They also said the claims were 'not relevant' to the hacking case and that it was 'a fallacy' to suggest the board could have stopped unlawful behaviour because 'whoever was involved could have stopped the act.' Richard Spearman, acting for the Mirra, said: 'In my submission it doesn't matter how [the company] came to do that [hacking], it did it.' Earlier this month, the actors Steve Coogan and Sienna Miller won hundreds of thousands of knicker in damages after Mirra Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of Trinity Mirra, extremely admitted hacking their phones and covering up naughty and unlawful activities. Coogan appeared at the high court for his settlement to be confirmed in front of Mr Justice Mann. The amount of damages was not revealed in court and is confidential, but Coogan confirmed afterwards that it was 'a six-figure sum' and said that the scale of it 'will make Mirror executives blush.' It is thought to be one of the Largest ever payments related to phone-hacking and other nefarious skulduggery. Trinity Mirra - which, dear blog readers with longer memories will recall spent several years denying that any of that there phone-hacking malarkey had ever gone on at thier titles, no siree, Bob - has put aside more than fifty million smackers to cover the costs of the hacking scandal, including compensation payouts and legal fees. It has already settled dozens of cases, including a batch of forty four in April that included the former Newcastle United and England football manager Kevin Keegan, the writer and convicted perjurer Jeffrey Archer, the actress Patsy Kensit and the former Home Secretary Charles Clarke. Sadie Frost, the actress and fashion designer, received a record payment from MGN of two hundred and sixty grand in 2015. However, this settlement is understood to have been surpassed since then by payouts which have not been made public, including the settlement for Elizabeth Hurley, which was confirmed in May. Hurley alleged that MGN published fifty eight separate articles between July 1998 and March 2007 that included information about her which had been obtained unlawfully.

For three decades, astronomers thought that only Saturn's small moon, Janus, confined the planet's A ring - the largest and farthest of the visible rings of the gas giant. But after pouring over NASA's Cassini mission data, Cornell University astronomers now conclude that the teamwork of seven moons is needed to keep the ring corralled. Without forces to hold the A ring in check, the ring would keep spreading out and would ultimately disappear. 'Cassini provided detail on the mass of Saturn's moons and the physical characteristics of the rings, so mathematically speaking, we concluded that the moon Janus alone cannot keep the rings from spreading out,' said Radwan Tajeddine, a research associate in astronomy and lead author of the new research. The scientists discovered that confinement of the A ring is shared among the moons Pan, Atlas, Prometheus, Pandora, Epimetheus, Mimas and Janus. 'All of these moons work as a group to contain the ring. Together they are strong. United they stand,' said Tajeddine. Cassini, which spectacularly crashed into Saturn on 15 September at the mission's end, provided valuable data and detailed images of the planet's rings. The A ring looks similar to a vinyl record; it has 'density waves' that resemble a record's grooves that are created by what astronomers call 'moon resonances.' These resonance markers enabled scientists to deduce that the moons' gravitational influence help to slow and reduce the spreading ring's momentum. There are hundreds of density waves spread over the A ring that are generated by different moon resonances. Tajeddine compares it to tug of war with many knots along the gravitational rope. All of these gravitational pushes by these moons slow the ring down and pull momentum from it. So much momentum is lost by the time the ring gets to Janus that the forces create the edge of the A ring. Senior author Joe Burns, the Irving Porter Church Professor of Engineering and Astronomy said: 'This was exactly the sort of information we had hoped the Cassini mission would provide and, by doing so, it has allowed us to solve this puzzle.' Tajeddine said scientists are still not sure how the rings formed, but the mechanism of their confinement is finally understood. 'That's the novelty of this idea. No one imagined that rings were held by shared responsibility,' he said. 'The density waves created by moons are beautiful to look at, but they actually participate in confining the ring. Janus has been getting all of the credit for stopping the A ring, which has been unfair to the other moons.' What Confines The Rings Of Saturn? will be published 18 October in the Astrophysical Journal.

Uranus will be at its brightest and appear in the sky as a blue-green colour this weekend as the planet reaches its closest point in its orbit to Earth. The giant - but very distant - planet will be visible as a blue-green dot in the sky all night and while spectators will be able to view it through binoculars or a telescope, NASA has said that it may even be bright enough to see with the naked eye. Uranus, named after the Greek God of the sky, will be visible in the sky over the UK as it 'reaches opposition,' meaning it is directly opposite the sun and at its closest to Earth than any other time of the year. Jane Houston Jones of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said: 'It is visible all night long and its blue-green colour is unmistakable. It may be bright enough to see with your naked eye and for sure in binoculars.' Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, will be visible in the Pisces constellation. The view of Uranus is just one of the celestial spectacles that can be seen from the ground this month. Saturn will appear in just a few days, sitting above the moon on 23 October and below it on 24 October, according to NASA. The Orionid meteor shower will also reach its peak on Friday with roughly ten to fifteen meteors visible in the early hours of the morning.

Scientists have detected the warping of space generated by the collision of two dead stars, or neutron stars. They have confirmed that such mergers lead to the production of the gold and platinum that exists in the Universe. The measurement of the gravitational waves given off by this cataclysmic event was made on 17 August by the LIGO-VIRGO Collaboration. The discovery enabled telescopes all over the world to capture details of the merger as it unfolded. David Reitze, executive director of the LIGO Laboratory at Caltech in Pasadena said: 'This is the one we've all been waiting for.' The outburst took place in a galaxy called NGC 4993, located roughly a thousand billion, billion kilometres away in the Constellation of Hydra. It happened one hundred and thirty million years ago. It was so far away that the light and gravitational waves have only just reached us. The stars themselves had masses ten to twenty per cent greater than the Sun - but they were no larger than thirty kilometres across. They were the crushed leftover cores of massive stars that long ago exploded as supernovas. They are called neutron stars because the process of crushing the star makes the charged protons and electrons in the atoms of the star combine - to form an object made entirely of neutrons. Such remnants are incredibly dense - a teaspoonful would weigh a billion tonnes. In the landscaped campus of one of the laboratories that made the detection, a fountain sprays jets of water skyward which are then pulled back down by gravity, sending ripples across the crystal clear pond. The LIGO detector, sitting incongruously in the vast woodland of Livingston in Louisiana, was designed to detect the gravitational ripples across the Universe created by cataclysmic cosmic events. Since it was upgraded two years ago, it has four times sensed the collisions of black holes. Gravitational waves caused by violent events send ripples through space-time that stretch and squeeze everything they pass through by a tiny amount - less than the width of an atom. The detection enabled seventy telescopes to obtain the first ever detailed pictures of such an event. These show an explosion one thousand times more powerful than a supernova - a burst called a kilonova.

A script for Coronation Street creator Tony Warren's previously unknown first attempt at a soap opera has been found. Before Warren changed the TV landscape with Coronation Street in 1960, he started writing Seven, Bessie Street. His friend David Tucker said it centres on a terraced street but is otherwise very different from Coronation Street. The script was found in Warren's possessions after he died in 2016 and is now part of an exhibition dedicated to Warren at Salford Museum & Art Gallery. Warren left his estate to Tucker, a friend of over twenty years, with an instruction to destroy all creative works that weren't already in the public domain. But Tucker decided to keep the Seven, Bessie Street script - with the proviso that no one else could read it. The script is in a frame in the Salford exhibition with just the cover page, billing it as 'a new soap opera in half-hourly episodes,' on display. Tucker has read it, however, and says it was 'quite obviously planned as a soap opera. The only thing really that relates to Coronation Street is the setting of a terraced street and the fact that it jumps a little bit between peoples' lives,' he told BBC News. 'But there are no characters that relate to Coronation Street at all, and no scenarios. It's very different.' Seven, Bessie Street revolves around a family - perhaps inspired by Warren's own - who all have theatrical connections. 'That's what Tony did know about in his youth,' Tucker said. 'That's probably why it would never have worked as it was, because there was so much in the stories about theatre. He was writing from what he knew in that Bessie Street script, but it probably wasn't going to relate that well to everybody else. So he then shifted the focus to the more mundane aspects of terraced street life.' Although Warren cast the script aside, Bessie Street did make its way into Coronation Street. Weatherfield's local primary school is called Bessie Street School. After jettisoning Seven, Bessie Street, Warren pitched a drama titled Our Street to the BBC. But he didn't hear back, so he reworked it as Florizel Street for Granada. Florizel Street was changed to Coronation Street because - as legend has it - a tea lady named Agnes remarked that Florizel sounded like the name of a disinfectant. Coronation Street launched in December 1960 and soon became one of the most popular and long-runing television programmes in Britain. The exhibition also traces Warren's early life and career, which included acting in BBC radio's Northern Children's Hour and writing for police series Shadow Squad. According to a 1958 receipt, he was paid one hundred and fifty for the latter. The exhibition also shows his past as a male model, appearing on the cover of a 1957 edition of Knitters Digest and on the packet for a pullover knitting pattern. There are many mementos from the Corrie years too, including Warren's MBE, various awards, his red This Is Your Life book and letters from former poet laureate John Betjeman describing Coronation Street as his 'favourite programme.' Betjeman and Laurence Olivier were such fans that they were chairman and president respectively of the British League For Hilda Ogden, established in 1979.

Substitute Mikel Merino scored a late winner as yer actual Keith Telly Topping's beloved (though still unsellable ... for the moment, anyway) Newcastle beat Crystal Palace Nil to keep Roy Hodgson's side firmly rooted to the bottom of the Premier League. The Eagles had scored their first goals and got their first points of the campaign with a win against champions Moscow Chelski FC last week and looked more likely to take the three points for periods at St James' Park. But Merino headed in five minutes from time in a game that did not see a shot on target until the final twenty minutes. Yohan Cabaye's naughty scissor tackle on DeAndre Yedlin was an early flashpoint, but the Palace midfielder escaped with a yellow card against his former club. Newcastle owner Mike Ashley put the club up for sale this week and several potential suitors are reported to be interested in a takeover, but while there is some uncertainty surrounding The Magpies off the pitch, on it the club have now made their best start to a Premier League season since 2011. Ashley said that he hopes to conclude a deal by Christmas - music to the ears of boss Rafa Benitez, who felt he did not get the backing he needed in the transfer market this summer following promotion from The Championship and has been quick to talk up the club's potential. The Spaniard's side have made a promising start to their first year back in the top flight, but they looked short of ideas in attack for large parts of the game against Crystal Palace Nil and Benitez will no doubt be asking for reinforcements in January. The former Liverpool Alabama Yee-Haws manager brought midfielder Merino on ten minutes into the second half and it was the Spanish Under-Twenty One international who provided The Magpies' spark. He rose highest in the box to meet Matt Ritchie's corner and head into the roof of the net, earning the hosts their fourth Premier League win of the season.

Sheikh Yer Man City moved five points clear at the top of the Premier League as second-placed The Scum's unbeaten run surprisingly ended at Huddersfield Town. City's quality eventually shone through in a three-nil home win against Burnley as Sergio Aguero equalled the club's all-time scoring record. The Argentine tucked in a first-half penalty to equal Eric Brook's tally of one hundred and seventy seven before City, who had previously been free-scoring at Etihad Stadium, wore down the visitors and added further goals though Nicolas Otamendi and Leroy Sane. Neighbours The Scum had only conceded twice in their opening eight league matches, but Jose Mourinho's side lost their defensive solidity against newly-promoted Huddersfield. Aaron Mooy and Laurent Depoitre took advantage of first-half errors as The Terriers beat The Scum for the first time since 1952, despite Marcus Rashford's strike setting up a nervy finish. In the lunchtime kick-off, Moscow Chelski FC came from behind in a thrilling four-two win against Watford. Aiming to avoid a third league defeat, Antonio Conte's side trailed two-one before two goals from substitute Michy Batshuayi and another from Cesar Azpilicueta lifted The Blues above Watford into fourth. Leicester's players might have been 'raw' after the sacking of manager Craig Shakespeare earlier in the week, but they showed few ill-effects as caretaker manager Michael Appleton began with a two-one win at Swansea. Federico Fernandez's own goal and a strike from Shinji Okazaki lifted the 2016 champions to thirteenth, despite Swans defender Alfie Mawson pulling a goal back with more than half an hour to play. Dirty Stoke dropped into the relegation zone as they paid the price for a slow start against Bournemouth. Andrew Surman and Junior Stanislas put the visitors in control inside the opening eighteen minutes and, despite Mame Biram Diouf narrowing the gap, the second-bottom Cherries held on to win and move to within one point of safety. In the evening kick-off, Sofiane Boufal scored a sensational solo goal to give Southampton a victory over West Bromwich Albinos, their first home win since August. The Baggies remain without a league win since the second day of the season. Meanwhile, West Hamsters United manager Slaven Bilic says that he is 'not worried' but is 'realistic' about his future after The Hamsters lost three-nil to Brighton & Hove Albinos at the London Stadium on Friday evening. The home fans booed throughout the game and thousands left the ground early following Brighton's third goal, which sealed the visitors' first away win of the season. West Hamsters slipped to seventeenth in the table. Brighton took the lead after ten minutes when the unmarked Glenn Murray headed in Pascal Gross' free-kick. Moments before the break Jose Izquierdo curled past Wankhands Joe Hart from distance, despite the England goalkeeper getting a hand to the ball. Murray added his second from the penalty spot in the seventy fifth minute after he was fouled by Pablo Zabaleta. Although they dominated possession, West Hamsters had only two shots on target, long-range efforts from Pedro Obiang and Manuel Lanzini. Chris Hughton's Albinos climbed to tenth in the table.

In Sunday's two games, soon-to-get-the-tin-tack Ronald Koeman said that he still believes he can turn Everton's fortunes around after they slipped into the relegation zone with a humiliating five-two defeat by The Arse at Goodison Park. Everton were embarrassed in front of their own fans and have now not won in five games in all competitions. 'The team is underperforming. It is in a difficult situation mentally,' the Dutchman said. A Harry Kane double inspired Stottingtot Hotshots as they punished a poor defensive performance by Liverpool Alabama Yee-Haws at Wembley. Kane scored the opener after four minutes as Kieran Trippier's chipped pass went over Dejan Lovren's head and the England striker took the ball around Simon Mignolet, who had rushed from his goal, to score. Eight minutes later Spurs doubled their lead as Hugo Lloris' long throw was not dealt with by Lovren, who missed a header on the halfway line and Kane was able to square to Son Heung-Min to slot home. Liverpool got a goal back as Jordan Henderson's cross-field pass found Mohamed Salah, who outpaced the Spurs defence and finished off the inside of the post with a scuffed shot. Liverpool boss Herr Klopp responded by taking off Lovren for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain after thirty minutes, but Dele Alli added a third for Spurs just before half-time as he lashed in a volley from eighteen yards. Kane got his second in the fifty sixth minute as he followed up a rebound from Jan Vertonghen's shot after Mignolet failed to clear a free-kick.

Leo Bonatini scored twice as title favourites Wolverhampton Wanderings survived a late scare to beat Preston Both Ends three-two at Molineux and remain top of The Championship. The hosts looked set to cruise to a second successive win after Bonatini built on Ivan Cavaleiro's first-half opener with a penalty on the hour and his second from close-range five minutes later. But the visitors reduced the deficit within a minute through Jordan Hugill, before a Conor Coady own goal twelve minutes from time led to a frantic finale in which Preston's Alan Browne was sent off. Cardiff stayed second after a late Joe Ralls penalty proved enough to give Neil Warnock's men a hard-fought win at The Middlesbrough Smog Monsters. Sheffield United stayed level on points with The Bluebirds after a two-one win over struggling Reading at Bramall Lane. Paul Coutts marked his return from injury by firing The Blades in front and Billy Sharp's fifth goal of the season made it two-nil before half-time. Roy Beerens reduced the deficit for Reading six minutes from time. Dirty Leeds bounced back from three successive losses in style and ended Bristol City's run of twelve games unbeaten with an emphatic three-nil win at Ashton Gate. Samuel Saiz struck twice in the first fourteen minutes to get the visitors off to a flying start and a Pierre-Michel Lasogga header completed an impressive performance. Both sides were reduced to ten men late on when a clash between Gaetano Berardi and Matty Taylor resulted in both players receiving straight red cards. At the bottom there was more woe for Blunderland who blew a two-goal lead to draw three-three at Brentford and extend their winless run to eleven games. The Mackem Filth responded well to Nico Yannaris' early opener for the hosts, with Lewis Grabban equalising and a Daniel Bentley own goal putting Simon Grayson's men apparently in control. When Grabban hit his second from the penalty spot on the stroke of half-time it looked like The Black Cats' fortunes were finally turning - but late goals from Florian Jozefzoon and Neal Maupay earned The Bees a point. Bottom club Notlob were denied a second straight win as Idrissa Sylla's seventy eighth minute strike salvaged a draw for Queens Park Strangers at the Macron Stadium. The hosts, fresh from last week's morale-boosting win over Sheffield Wednesday, had led through Darren Pratley's header. Derby capitalised on the fourth minute sending-off of Sheffield Wednesday's Glenn Loovens to cruise to a two-nil win at Pride Park. John Terry scored his first goal for Aston Villains in a two-one home win over Poor Bloody Fulham. Stefan Johansen equalised Terry's header before half-time, but Albert Adomah won the game with a goal early in the second half. Fraizer Campbell's seventy eighth-minute effort gave Hull a win at Barnsley. That victory ended a twenty four-game wait for an away win. Goals from Barry McKay and Eric Lichaj saw Nottingham Forest beat Burton Albinos at the City Ground. Millwall condemned Steve Cotterill to his first defeat as Birmingham boss with a two-nil win in the late kick-off at The New Den. Blues defender Maxime Colin turned a Steve Morison cross into his own net two minutes into the second half and Ryan Tunnicliffe sealed the Lions' win fifteen minutes from time.

Marc Almond has apologised for swearing at a number of people 'talking loudly' during one of his gigs. As reported by the Ipswich Star, the outburst happened on Saturday when his Shadows & Reflections Tour arrived at the Ipswich Regent. The outburst is understood to have been directed towards a man and a woman in the front row. BBC Radio Suffolk presenter Stephen Foster was at the show and immediately snitched how the episode unfolded about half-an-hour into Marc's set. Foster said: 'I was a way away from the front and I did not hear the people talking, so when he started swearing it was surprising, it was shocking. It got pretty nasty. Some of the audience, mainly his diehard fans, started applauding when he did it. But I got the impression that it was the main thing people were talking about when they left the Regent.' Speaking on Twitter, Almond said: 'They also spoil it for other audience members who have come to listen. I'm sorry for the language but they have no respect for me or others. I think anyone who has been to one of my shows knows how I deal with people who just standing talking loudly at the front, ignoring songs.'

Of course, as usual when reporting this story, most media outlets - including, sadly, the BBC - chose to include some comments taken from Twitter written by people that you've never heard of. Seriously, cut that shit out, media outlets, nobody cares what some Grunaid Morning Star readers think. About anything. Do some proper journalism, for once, and report the sodding news. Twitter is not 'news'.

Arabella Weir's utterly shocking opinion piece in the Gruniad, Take It From Me - British TV & Film Are Rife With Sexual Bullying is a must-read for anyone who has been even vaguely following the shocking revelations about the activities of a certain very naughty Hollywood producer but have been secure in the belief that 'well, at least that sort of thing doesn't go on here.' Apparently, it does.

A German court on Monday sentenced an eighty eight-year-old 'Nazi grandma' to six months in The Big House, the fifth in a string of similar convictions for repeated Holocaust denial. Ursula Haverbeck has often denied the mass murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis, which - rightly - constitutes a crime of incitement of racial hatred under German law. Although she has been convicted on several occasions, she has not served any jail time, as the cases are all still under appeal. During a public event at the end of January, Haverbeck repeated her claims, saying it was 'not true' that there were gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp. She also disputed the fact that over one million people were killed at the concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. During her trial, Haverbeck argued that she was 'only quoting from a book' that she was presenting at the event. She also filed an immediate appeal against Monday's ruling. Dubbed the 'Nazi grandma' by the German media, Haverbeck is a notorious extremist who was once chairwoman of a far-right training centre shut down in 2008 for spreading Nazi propaganda. She had also appeared on television to declare that 'the Holocaust is the biggest and most sustainable lie in history.' A court spokeswoman said that Haverbeck would only be imprisoned if her appeal fails and if she is deemed fit to serve time in prison.

A 'randy couple' - Yahoo News' description, not this bloggers - who were caught having The Sex inside a branch of Domino's Pizza have been spared a jail sentence. Daniella Hirst and Craig Smith were warned by a judge that they were both 'very close' to being sent to pris for the 'brazen' offence. A court heard that the pair had spent the day drinking before they were waiting for their stuffed crust pizza (settle down at the back) and 'let their high spirits get the better of them.' Magistrates viewed parts of an eighteen-minute video showing Hirst performing a sex act on Smith up against the counter while several members of staff prepared food at the Castle Road Domino's in Scarborough. Hirst last month pleaded very guilty to committing 'an act outraging public decency by behaving in an indecent manner' after the pizza shop incident. Smith was found extremely guilty of the same offence in his absence due to him being on remand for other, unrelated, offences. The pair, who both appeared at court, were each handed a twelve month community order by Scarborough Magistrates. Chairman of the bench Charles Davis said: 'We have considered everything we have seen today and agree that you did not go into pizza shop with the intent of outraging public indecency. We found there was no identified victim and the offence was committed impulsively in drink. We do find it was a brazen offence committed in a public place over a prolonged period and in the presence of staff. I must make it clear you were both very close to going to prison today. You need to view this as a direct alternative to custody if you breach this expect to go to prison.' The CCTV footage showed Hirst straddling a wet-floor sign before she is thrown in 'a sex position' by Smith on 25 February while very intoxicated. The pair were then seen carrying out various sex acts, largely shielded away from the camera, in the corner of the takeaway shop out of shot. North Yorkshire Police were first made aware of the footage by the media after it was posted on Twitter by a member of the Domino's staff. Scott McLoughlin, the couple's solicitor, described the footage as 'blatant, but not as blatant as it could have been.' Which, if you Google 'piss-poor excuses for being caught doing something naughty in public,' you'll find that one pretty close to the top of the list. He added: 'They didn't go to the store with any pre-plan, drink got the better of them.'

A French intelligence agent sent a text message 'by mistake' to the mobile phone of a jihadist, inadvertently warning him that he was under surveillance and undermining an investigation, it emerged on Friday. The Torygraph claims that the target of the probe - described as an 'Islamist preacher' based in the Paris area - 'immediately understood' that his phone was being tapped and his movements monitored. He called the agent in question to complain and then warned his contacts that they were also under surveillance. As a result, separate investigations by two different intelligence services came to nothing, M6 television reported. 'It was undoubtedly the worst mistake the agent ever made,' M6 commented. Interior ministry sources later were red-faced when they confirmed the veracity of the report. The intelligence officer had meant to send the text to a colleague. It contained information about the alleged Islamist and the progress of the investigation. It was only when the Islamist decided to 'have some fun' at the officer's expense and phoned him minutes after he sent the text that he realised the calamity of what he had done. The two agencies involved, the Central Territorial Intelligence Service and the General Directorate for Internal Security, were said to be 'furious' over the mishap. No shit? The incident came as France remains under a state of emergency declared after the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. Some of the emergency measures, notably beefed-up police powers, are to be made permanent under a bill that has been approved by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly. Despite criticism that the legislation risks curtailing civil liberties because it codifies measures such as 'stop and seizure' and house arrest without judicial review, most of the provisions are expected to stand. Human rights groups want greater oversight by courts, arguing that the bill would grant excessive powers to security forces whose suspicions could stem from flawed or incomplete intelligence.

The new head of the World Health Organisation is reported to be 'rethinking' a, frankly bizarre, plan to appoint Zimbabwe's odious, nasty and criminally corrupt President Robert Mugabe as a 'goodwill' ambassador. Doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus's original proposal sparked an - entirely understandable - outcry. From pretty much everyone. He had previously praised Zimbabwe for its 'commitment to public health.' But Mugabe's critics say that Zimbabwe's healthcare system has 'collapsed' under his thirty-year rule of terror, with staff often going without pay while medicines are in short supply. It led Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Doug Coltart to take to Twitter to question how the WHO felt about having 'a Goodwill Ambassador who destroyed the health sector in his country.' Other social media users accused the president - who, at ninety three, has outlived his country's average life expectancy by more than three decades - of travelling abroad to receive his own medical treatment. Meanwhile, the UK government described his selection as 'surprising and disappointing' given his country's human rights record and warned that it could overshadow the WHO's work. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he 'thought it was a bad April Fool's joke,' while the US state department said it 'clearly contradicts the United Nations ideals of respect for human rights and human dignity.' Which it does, albeit, pretty much anything coming from US officials regarding the fitness of other countries leadership to organise a piss-up in a brewery has to be taken with a large dose of 'you might want to think about sorting out your own problems before you point fingers at anyone else, matey.' Just saying. Zimbabwe's leader has been frequently taken to task over human rights abuses by both the EU and the US. Other groups who have criticised the vile and odious rascal Mugabe's appointment include the Wellcome Trust, the NCD Alliance, UN Watch, the World Heart Federation and Action Against Smoking. Doctor Tedros claimed that Zimbabwe was a country that 'places universal health coverage and health promotion at the centre of its policies to provide health care to all.' One or two people even believed him. However, the Ethiopian said on Saturday that he was 'rethinking his approach in light of WHO values.' The vile and odious rascal Mugabe was supposed to be goodwill ambassador 'to help tackle non-communicable diseases,' which includes things like heat attacks and asthma. Tedros is the first African to lead the WHO. He was elected in May with a mandate to tackle perceived politicisation in the organisation.

A jilted wife emptied a kettle of boiling water over the head of her husband's mistress, causing the woman 'terrible burns,' a court has heard. Monika Fourie, is accused of pouring scalding water from a cup and then a kettle over Hannah Stokes as she sat on a sofa. Stokes began an affair with Fourie's Royal Marine husband Wouter, a few weeks earlier. Prosecutors said that Fourie unexpectedly walked in on the pair at the marital home as they sat in the lounge. She told them she was going to make a cup of tea but filled a mug with boiling water and poured it over Stokes. Fourie then poured the remaining water from the kettle over her, causing 'terrible burns' to her chest, neck and back, Plymouth Crown Court heard. Jo Martin, prosecuting, said Stokes was treated for second degree partial thickness burns down to her navel and had surgery for a perforated eardrum. Fourie denies causing grievous bodily harm to Stokes with intent on 24 October 2015. She has pleaded very guilty to the alternative charge of causing grievous bodily harm without intent. Martin said that there was 'no dispute' Fourie had poured the water over Stokes, causing serious injury. She told the jury the issue was what was going through her mind at the time and whether she had the intent to cause serious injury. Martin said Fourie and her South African-born husband, who had a daughter together, were 'having problems' in their marriage. He began a relationship with Stokes in September 2015 and towards the end of the following month told his wife about it, believing their marriage was over. Martin said that Mister Fourie said his wife 'took the news calmly' and they 'discussed money and childcare.' His wife then went to stay with a friend and her husband arranged for Stokes to come over and watch a rugby match at the marital home. But as they sat together in the lounge they heard a key in the lock and the defendant walked in. Martin said Fourie was 'eerily calm' and asked her husband to introduce them. She said the defendant then said she was going to make a cup of tea and walked to the kitchen area of the open plan room. Fourie then asked Stokes a series of questions, such as how old she was and whether she had children. Martin said the defendant asked her husband to go upstairs. She added: 'Mrs Fourie approached Miss Stokes with a cup of tea. Miss Stokes presumed it was a cup of tea. It was not. It was boiling water and Monika Fourie threw it over her neck and chest area. She started to scream with pain and instinctively moved to the corner of the room where she felt rightly or wrongly that she was trapped.' Martin added that Mister Fourie came downstairs to see his wife then walk over with the kettle and pour water over Stokes. The judge told that jury that Fourie was suffering from anxiety and depression and she was allowed to sit in the well of the court rather than in the dock. The trial continues.

Some Amazon customers in Orlando got a big surprise when they opened a package that arrived on their doorstep. They had ordered plastic storage bins, but the bins reportedly came along with sixty five pounds of marijuana. 'We love Amazon and do a lot of shopping on Amazon,' said the customer, who asked not to be identified 'for safety reasons.' When she and her fiancé needed to put some of their belongings in storage, they placed an order for twenty seven gallon storage totes. But when the packages arrived, they knew something didn't feel right. 'They were extremely heavy, heavier than you would think from ordering four empty bins,' she said. The ganja was in boxes inside the totes and as soon as the couple opened the boxes, they were hit with a strong sickly-sweet odour. 'When the first officer got here, she was in disbelief,' the customer claimed. Police immediately seized the drugs and launched an investigation. The grass had been shipped by Amazon's Warehouse Deals department via UPS from a facility in Massachusetts. 'We were still pretty fearful our home would be broken into and we didn't sleep there for a few days,' said the customer. The couple said that after 'going back and forth' with Amazon mostly by e-mail for more than a month, they eventually received an e-mail giving them a one hundred and fifty dollars gift card with the message, 'I am unable to do anything else at this time.' The customers said that what they wanted was an apology and an explanation about how this could happen. 'There was no concern for a customer's safety. I mean, this could have turned into a worst-case scenario.' Orlando police said that there have been no arrests as yet, but they are still 'actively investigating' the case. Amazon sent a statement saying that its customer service team 'worked directly with the customer' to 'address concerns' and will work with law enforcement to investigate the case. Though, one imagines, they might not have much choice with regard to the latter.

Most inmates are trying to get out of the notorious Ottawa jail, but not Damian O'Reilly. He was actually desperate to get inside the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre after reportedly hatching a fool-proof drug-smuggling plot which would see marijuana sold to inmates for ten times its street value. All he had to do was find a crack in the system, a sure-fire way of getting arrested and jailed. And it had to be quick for O'Reilly, aged twenty, had 'hooped' eight Kinder Surprise eggs filled with marijuana, tobacco, matches and rolling papers before setting out to get arrested on 19 June 2016. The Italian chocolate egg which comes with a toy inside (assembly usually required) is one of the most popular ways of smuggling contraband into Canadian jails. The coloured plastic capsule that holds the surprise toy is thin and flexible, making it easier to 'hoop' - a jail term for inserting contraband up ones rectum. O'Reilly - who had put all of his eggs in one basket, as it were - believed that the quickest way to get arrested would be to throw a rock at a police cruiser in front of the courthouse and, sure enough, he got the job done. It helped that he was already on probation, so when he was arrested, he was held for bail and shipped off to the old Innes Road jail. That's where his plot unravelled, however. It is not known if a guard noticed O'Reilly was in some discomfort and walking a bit funny but whatever the reason, the guard had suspicions that O'Reilly might be smuggling drugs. The inmate was escorted to 'a dry cell.' Dry cells has no plumbing and guards will either attempt to seize the contraband or, ahem, wait for it to emerge. In this case, it was O'Reilly himself who, once alone in the cell, removed the Kinder Surprise eggs from his arse. Presumably with a look of blissful relief on his face. A guard had to then collect the eggs and photograph them before securing them inside the Ottawa police drug safe at the jail. It's a dirty job, dear blog reader but, someone has to do it. In all, the eight eggs contained fifty nine grams of marijuana, a gram of MDMA, tobacco, rolling papers and matches. O'Reilly pleaded extremely guilty to drug trafficking and was sentenced on Monday to two years in the pokey, less two hundred and fifty days credited for pre-trial custody. O'Reilly's hooping of the eight eggs is believed to be a record in criminal defence and jailhouse circles, with the closest recorded feat coming in at four eggs in 2010. A year earlier, also at the Ottawa jail, inmate Gregory Ingram, choked on a Kinder egg filled with drugs and later died at hospital. It was a strip search at the same Innes Road jail that led to his death. The guards noticed that he reached into his underwear and then brought a closed fist to his mouth, according to an inquest. It was obvious that he was trying to hide the drugs in his mouth. Paramedics later discovered the yellow plastic egg lodged in his throat. They were able to remove it, but not before Ingram's brain was deprived of oxygen long enough to be left in a permanent vegetative state. He died three days later after his family asked for him to be removed from life support.

The bitter dumped girlfriend of a banker in the Bahamas reportedly got her revenge by driving his Merc into his swimming pool. Guy Gentile broke up with Kristina Kuchma, a Russian-born model, during a restaurant dinner after she asked him for fifty thousand dollars to help start up a marketing business. 'I said, "You know what? If you want a guy who's going to hand you money for nothing, you got the wrong guy,"' Gentile told the New York Post. Incensed by his negative response, Kuchma reportedly 'threw hot green tea in his face and stormed off.' Gentile said that he later received a text message from Kuchma which read: 'Lier! [sic] You told me you will help me to start a business! That were your words! Now you want to be an investor? Well, investor, I have a surprise for you on a backyard, start with that investment idea first.' When he arrived home the next morning, Gentile found his Mercedes S400 hybrid at the bottom of his swimming pool. 'My heart dropped because of [fears she was inside]. I didn't care about the car at that moment,' he told the newspaper. 'But, after I realised she wasn't in it, then I start to get pissed off that she would pull something like this after everything I've done for her. I dumped her. She dumped my car.' A report was filed to the police after the incident. Gentile said that it took more than four hours for the car to be removed from the pool. He added: 'I really loved this girl and would have married her, but she went too far!'

A model, allegedly 'high on cocaine,' crashed her boyfriend's vintage Ferrari into a truck in Ibiza on Monday, fled the scene and then 'tried to flee the island on a private jet,' according to the Daily Caller. Elif Aksu, a twenty five-year-old Austrian model, was reportedly diving behind the wheel of her millionaire boyfriend's vintage Ferrari Dino - tasty motor - when she allegedly 'smashed' into the back of a truck whilst going through a roundabout. Aksu and the unidentified forty four-year-old boyfriend promptly fled the scene of the accident before police responded but were 'overheard' by onlookers talking about an aeroplane, reports the Daily Scum Mail.

Police 'quickly went to a local private runway' and 'found the couple, who were waiting to board a private jet as it was being prepped for a flight.' Officers very arrested Aksu, who then tested positive for cocaine and was found to be driving without a license whilst being snowflaked off her tits. The unidentified man is, allegedly, a British millionaire of Saudi descent who 'owns property on the island.' Witnesses of the crash said that the man left the car with what appeared to be an employee of his before leaving for the runway. Whilst authorities held the woman at the airport, her boyfriend boarded his private jet and left the island without her, thus leaving her to face the music alone, it would seem. Well what a total hero he is, eh? Aksu is now out on bail but will extremely face charges of suspicion of driving without a license and driving under the influence of drugs. The Ferrari Dino is estimated to be worth nearly half-a-million dollars. Or, at least, it used to be.

A woman in Cheltenham allegedly died 'after getting her head stuck between decorative bars in her apartment window.' According to the NewsFix Daily website, the nameless woman's daughter noted that her mother did not like to smoke inside the house 'to keep it clean' and she, apparently, stuck her head out through her top-floor apartment window to 'grab a quick smoke.' She had also been drinking and this, the website claims, is 'believed to have contributed to her inability to free herself once she became stuck.' She choked to death between the arc of the bars. Joggers passing by noticed her head sticking out of the window and alerted police. 'I tried to lift her off the railings but she was too heavy and her neck was stuck in the groove in the railings,' one of the alleged witnesses allegedly said. It should be noted, however, that the website reporting this alleged 'story' cited no external source and could not provide the name of the woman involved. So, there's more than a fair chance that this is, actually, a load of old fake horseshite masquerading as 'news'.

'If you thought rear-zipper jeans and jeans with see-through knees were offbeat, then wait till you see the latest creation from designer Thibaut,' The Huffington Post reports. On Thursday, the Tokyo-based designer debuted a style on the runway at Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo that Insider has dubbed 'thong jeans.' The pants are, basically, jeans with the front and back panels cut out leaving the wearer's bum sticking out for all to see. Don't wear them in cold weather, dear blog reader.

A woman from Zimbabwe was fined a total of forty seven goats for claiming her neighbour is a prostitute. Siphumuzile Dube allegedly told Bekezela Sibanda that she had 'a habit of sleeping with touts' in the area in order to get free transport to Bulawayo. The women, who are vendors at a market, 'got into a fight' after Siphumuzile questioned Bekezela's business tactics. Siphumuzile subsequently wrote a note with the words 'Bekezela is a prostitute' and sent it to her husband. Privilege Dube, described as 'a witness' (who may, or may not, be related to the accused woman) told B-Metro that Siphumuzile had 'done a good thing' by revealing Bekezela's wicked naughtiness because her husband was 'too blind to notice his wife's adulterous ways. Her husband is always accusing people of ganging up against her but she is a well-known prostitute,' he claimed. 'Instead of thanking Siphumuzile he told her that he had not hired anyone to be his wife's bodyguard and that she should learn to mind her own business. She has never paid bus fare and travels for free whenever she travels to Bulawayo to buy her stock and we are aware that she sleeps with the touts as payment,' added Privilege. Siphumuzile admitted to writing the note. 'I am the one who wrote the note but I will not comment any further as I am in the process of reconciliation talks with Bekezela and her family,' she said. B-Metro 'gathered' that Siphumuzile was charged forty seven goats 'as a peace offering' but claimed that she only managed to pay twenty. The matter is 'still being deliberated' by the two families.

Some people just aren't cut out for the realities of a high-pressure work environment and it would seem the same goes for dogs. Lulu the Labrador's handler had high hopes of her becoming the CIA's latest bomb-sniffing talent, but it was not meant to be. It started out well, according to a 'pupdate' on the CIA's website, but soon started to go downhill. A few weeks into training, Lulu began to show signs that she simply 'wasn't interested in detecting explosive odours,' the blog post said. 'Even when they could motivate her with food and play to search, she was clearly not enjoying herself any longer.' The post went on to say that the 'mental and physical well being' of the sniffer dogs is the CIA's top priority, so they 'made the extremely difficult decision to do what's best for Lulu and drop her from the programme.' But it is not all bad news for Lulu, as handlers have the option to adopt dogs who are dropped. Lulu now has a new home and, reportedly, spends her days 'chasing rabbits and squirrels in the garden' - which is, obviously, much less stressful than sniffing for explosives. And, more fun.

The Brazilian football club Íbis Sport hadn't won a match for two years. But now, the self-styled 'worst team in the world,' which plays in the lowest division of the Pernambuco state championship, has achieved three consecutive victories - and can make it a record-breaking four if they can beat Centro Limoeirense this weekend according to the Gruniad. But, far from welcoming this sudden reversal of fortune some fans claim the club's 'roots and identity' are at stake. Following the latest one-nil victory against Ferroviário do Cabo, a group of fans 'stormed a local bar' where the players were enjoying a post-match barbecue and beers to demand 'please stop winning.' 'This is destroying our history,' said one protest leader, Nilsinho Filho. Other fans went onto social media to whinge, or call for resignations. 'This is a worrying situation in the long term. To stop being an icon and to be just another winning team. It's the coach’s fault,' read one typical whinging tweet. Between 1980 and 1984, the team went three years and eleven months without winning a single game and entered the Guinness Book Of Records as 'the worst football club in the world.' The club's Maradona-permed former midfielder Mauro Shampoo, boasts that he scored just one goal in ten years and has also whinged about the recent run of victories. 'If we keep winning, we are going to lose our brand,' he said. The club's president, Ozir Junior, however insisted that the club's ambition is to get to the first division of the state championship. He attributed the string of sudden victories to the arrival of several new players who joined the team after recently becoming unemployed. 'We are not the worst team in the world - that was a thing of the 1980s. We are not even the worst team in Pernambuco,' he claimed. 'The first division is our dream, but it's going to be a lot of work.'

The website Topix does pretty much what it says on the tin. Start a topic, take a poll, get a discussion going, that sort of thing. So, it should be no surprise that someone decided to use the website this week to start a poll asking Why are Wyoming people so stupid? It was a multiple choice survey with room to leave a comment. Suggested answers were: a) 'Lack of education', b) 'Inbreeding', c) 'Isolation', d) 'All of the above'. Needless to say, many Wyoming-based commentators were not impressed.

A Colorado Cub Scout was reportedly 'kicked out of his den' after publicly quizzing the controversial platform of a Republican state senator. Ames Mayfield, a fifth-grader from Broomfield, asked Senator Vicki Marble about her previous statements on race and her stance on gun control. Days later, he was, reportedly, 'removed from his den,' according to Denver Seven News. Let this be a valuable lesson to you, Ames young man. Never, not never, ask an elected official - or, indeed, pretty much anyone with a smidgen of power - to justify themselves and their actions. It will only lead heartache. And, probably, getting your name put on Ze List.

Mind you, maybe Ames ought to thank himself lucky; a thirty two-year-old Waynesboro woman has been accused of using her hands, a wooden spoon, a belt and a spatula to physically abuse an eleven-year-old girl, according to PublicOpinionOnline. Katherine Anne Graham, aged thirty two and right bleedin charmer by the sound of her, is charged with 'endangering the welfare of a child and assault.' Police said that their investigation began when the girl was interviewed about alleged abuse. According to police, the girl said that on 29 September the girl 'didn't want to walk home' because 'her legs hurt.' The girl said that she has trouble walking 'due to medical conditions' and that Graham spanked her, hard, because, she said, the girl was 'lying' about her conditions. The girl said Graham pulled the girl's pants down and spanked her with her hands, according to charging documents. A few days later, the girl claimed, Graham gave the girl thirty minutes to wash the windows. When she didn't finish in time, Graham allegedly pulled down her pants again and beat her, harshly, with a wooden spoon, hitting her an estimated ten times. The girl said that Graham then gave her five more minutes to finish the windows and when she, again, failed to finish in the allotted time, Graham allegedly beat her ten more times. For 'looking at her in a funny way.' Probably. The girl's father -who is said to be in a relationship with Graham - was allegedly present when all of these incidents occurred. The day after, the girl was told to wash the walls and clear the car after which Graham, allegedly, thrashed the girl with a belt and told her to 'do it right,' according to court documents. The girl added that a few days later she was spanked with a belt again, this time with her clothes still on. The final incident the girl reported happened when the girl didn't have time to blow-dry her hair before leaving for school, she told police. Graham allegedly padded her with a wooden spatula. Police reported seeing photos of the injuries to the girl, which included red, swollen raised welts combined with black, blue, purple and yellow bruising on her bottom and hips. A doctor from Hershey Medical Centre reviewed the photos and told investigators on 6 October that the injuries were 'consistent with child abuse.'

A driver in South Western Germany attempted to deceive police officers on Wednesday when he was stopped and told to take a drug test. But, when water came out of the plastic penis he was wearing, 'the jig was up' reported The Local. According to the police in Kaiserlautern, Rhineland-Palatinate, the twenty six-year-old man was 'noticed' by a patrol car because he had been driving a vehicle and using his mobile phone at the same time. When the officers approached him, they suspected he was 'under the influence of drugs' and decided he had to take a drug test by providing a sample of his urine. But when the man gave them the sample, water instead of urine came out. Though the penis 'looked quite authentic,' the police 'weren't easily tricked.' After they noticed that the plastic contraption had been strapped around the man's body and that he was 'dizzy,' they demanded he take a blood test. Eventually the man admitted to having ingested cannabis and amphetamines. Investigation proceedings against the man are underway, the police said.

A sixty seven-year-old Spokane woman injured when a cyclist yelled 'hot pizza!' and then crashed into her along the Centennial Trail is suing the rider. Virginia Pearsall hired lawyers to press her case against the cyclist, Justin Haller. 'Like some sort of asinine idiot, he plowed right into her,' Pearsall's lawyer said. 'Instead of acting like a reasonable adult, the guy had road rage, acting like some sort of potentate of the pathway.' He added that Pearsall wanted 'to bring awareness' to trail safety but said that she 'could' receive compensation in the 'high six figures' if her injuries are 'permanent.' In an interview, Haller denied any wrongdoing. He called the collision 'an accident' and blamed the unsafe mix of walkers and cyclists on the trail. 'You shouldn't have a place where you have five times the speed discrepancy,' Haller said, noting that cyclists are allowed to reach up to fifteen miles per hour on the trail, where most people walk at around three miles per hour. 'If I were going to hop onto a highway going twelve miles per hour, don't you think I should look out for bigger and faster-moving vehicles?' According to accounts from both Pearsall and Haller, Pearsall was walking with her sister on the trail when she heard 'someone' behind her yell, 'Hot pizza!' The statement reportedly confused her, but she moved to the right to avoid what she thought was likely to be a cyclist. Haller collided with her from behind. Their accounts diverge from this point. The complaint argues that Haller was travelling 'at an unsafe, reckless speed without concern for the safety and welfare of others.' After Haller hit Pearsall, first with his bike and then his body, they both fell to the ground. A witness interviewed for the complaint said that Haller 'screamed obscenities' at Pearsall as both were on the ground. The witness, a mother with her 'small children,' told him to 'stop yelling' and that Pearsall was clearly injured. Haller reportedly 'continued to berate' Pearsall, according to the complaint. He yelled at her and used an obscenity to tell her to get out of the way, according to the suit, adding Pearsall 'had no right to be on the trail' and that the trail was 'for cyclists only.' According to Haller, he yelled the non-sequitur to 'get the attention' of Pearsall, her sister and a nearby group he called 'the stroller brigade.' Haller said he 'regretted the situation,' especially considering the 'death threats' he has allegedly received since the story became news. 'Nothing but slanderous lies based on nothing. It's a media circus,' he said. 'I'm being vilified because I'm a man. If I were a female cyclist, do you think I'd be vilified?' He added that he 'welcomed' a lawsuit, which he considered 'a ruse,' because 'somebody said I had a nice bike. If someone wants to sue me, they can go ahead. I don't have anything,' he said, adding that his bike 'isn't as nice as people say it is.' He said that he now avoids that section of the Centennial Trail because 'it's not safe.'

An unsatisfied customer in Melbourne, Florida, was very arrested last week for assaulting a 7-Eleven employee with molten-hot nacho cheese. According to the Palm Bay Daily, Stephanie L Hicks entered the 7-Eleven in the early hours of Thursday morning, 'looking to buy a sandwich' and a cup of the aforementioned cheesy liquid. The clerk, however, had reportedly asked Hicks to refrain from opening the hot cheese dispenser - a request which Hicks did not appreciate, as she later told officers she 'wasn't a fan of the clerk's attitude.' Hicks then tried to pay for her food, but the clerk refused. In retaliation, Hicks threw both the sandwich and the hot cheese across the counter, covering the clerk's hands and feet. Hicks then waited outside the front door of the 7-Eleven for police to arrive, but not before angrily reminding the clerk that 'the customer is always right!' Hicks was extremely arrested for battery and hauled off to jail.

Malawi's President, Peter Mutharika, on Friday warned 'suspected vampires' in the country to 'stop terrorising' people and told village chiefs to 'stamp down on witchcraft.' His calls came as 'a vampire scare' in two districts 'triggered mob violence' and left six people dead. Lynch mobs accusing people of vampirism have 'been on the rampage' in parts of Malawi since mid-September. 'If people are using witchcraft to suck people's blood, I will deal with them and I ask them to stop doing that with immediate effect,' Mutharika told a gathering of leaders in Mulanje, a district with the highest incidences. On Monday, the United Nations pulled staff out of two districts that have been swept up in the madness. Belief in witchcraft is widespread in rural Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries. A spate of vicious ad-hoc vigilante violence linked to a vampire rumours also erupted in Malawi in 2002.

A woman was arrested after allegedly racking up thousands of dollars in charges to her boyfriend's credit card.Crystal Kay Aldridge is currently being held in the Oklahoma County Jail on one count of 'engaging in a pattern of criminal offences.' According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office began investigating Aldridge - who has 'at least fourteen' aliases - after her boyfriend 'began noticing unauthorised charges' on his credit card. The man came to authorities in May 2017 after having to close two of his bank accounts and three credit cards because of upwards of twenty thousand bucks in charges. The credit cards were used for Amazon purchases, hotel stays and a cabin rental in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Authorities also believe Aldridge forged or counterfeited several cheques from the man's business. The man told investigators that he had been dating a woman by the name of Crystal Tims - a known alias of Aldridge - for about a year. 'We were able to track her, based on some of her credit card usage and were able to get a warrant out for her arrest,' said Mark Opgrande, an Oklahoma County Sheriff's Offices spokesperson. According to court documents, the arrest warrant was issued last month, at which point Aldridge contacted the victim, saying that she was currently in the Houston area 'aiding in the relief effort' from Hurricane Harvey. Aldridge allegedly sent the victim photos of the destruction and posted similar photos to social media. A second arrest warrant was filed and Aldridge was tracked to an Ardmore hotel where she was extremely arrested on conspiracy charges. A man found with her in the hotel room - her actual boyfriend according to the arrest warrant affidavit - was also arrested on a methamphetamine trafficking charge. 'We were able to take a look at those pictures [of Texas] and find out that the data did not come from a cell phone, it came from Google,' said Opgrande. In 2007, Aldridge - who then went by the name Crystal Dover - was very sentenced to a seven year spell in The Big House on an uttering (forgery) charge out of Oklahoma County. Online records show she was released in 2012. 'We also believe there’s more victims out there, there might even be more suspects,' Opgrande said.

A woman who stabbed a police deputy reportedly planned to kill her ex-boyfriend and then herself. Michael DeMalia said that his ex-girlfriend showed up at his door on Saturday, barged inside, broke two fish tanks containing ninety gallons of water and set his house ablaze - and then followed that by stabbing a retired sheriff's deputy who had come to help his neighbour. A frantic DeMalia ran from his Daytona Beach home to get away from his crazed ex-girlfriend and seek help from Cliff Williams, who moments later ended up with a puncture wound to his lower back and lacerations to his forehead and shoulder, courtesy of the woman's violent behaviour, which she had hoped would culminate with a burned-down house, a dead ex-boyfriend and a suicide, said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood. In the end, Brittany Bonin, twenty six, was 'subdued' by Williams and subsequently very arrested by Edgewater police. She was charged with aggravated battery against a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, first-degree arson, tampering with a witness and battery. 'There are two lessons from this. Number one, the most dangerous thing we deal with is domestic violence and number two, you're never off-duty,' Chitwood said during a media conference in front of DeMalia's house. The hospitalised deputy, Cliff Williams, worked for the Sheriff's Office from 1989 until his retirement as a captain in 2014. He came back as a reserve deputy in 2015 to run the Police Athletic League in DeLand. After Chitwood was elected sheriff in 2016, he asked Williams to head a similar programme in Deltona. Williams was released from the hospital on Saturday and suffered no internal bleeding or organ damage, according to the Sheriff's Office. Chitwood praised Williams' heroism and toughness. 'I'm surprised the knife didn't bend when it hit him,' Chitwood said of Williams, who is a Marine veteran and, clearly, one tough hombre. DeMalia claimed that Bonin showed up at his door demanding he give back some gifts she had bought for his daughter. He said that he had the items in his hand ready to give them to her when she 'stormed' into the house and smashed the fish tank in the living room. At one point, Bonin jumped on him and knocked the cellphone out of his hand. He fled the house and Bonin went into DeMalia's eighteen-month-old daughter's bedroom to start the fire, DeMalia said. She also broke the second fish tank in the living room.

A woman who tried to shoot a pellet gun at a squirrel in Colorado was arrested on Friday. Kylie Morrison, of Longmont, had 'grown more and more agitated' by the time police arrived according to the Daily Scum Mail. Morrison was reportedly 'upset' that 'a person was feeding the animal' when she pulled the gun out of her purse. The woman tried to shoot the squirrel but when she pulled the trigger, the gun failed to discharged. She was taken into custody by law enforcement who determined that she did not have a 'real' weapon. Morrison was very arrested on disorderly conduct and will have to appear in court to answer the charge. 'Basically, she was just shooting air at the squirrel,' police told FOX Thirty One. In 2013, Morrison had a previous run in with the law when she was suspected of being completely off her face on meth whilst fleeing the police. The, at the time twenty six-year-old, was arrested on suspicion of felony vehicular eluding, misdemeanour obstruction of a police officer, driving under the influence and multiple traffic violations. When policed arrived on the scene to arrest the man she had been arguing with, Morrison jumped into his vehicle and drove off at high speed.

A man who only wanted to get rid of unwanted pests managed to burn down his home with a blowtorch. Mind you, this is according to the Independent so it's probably not true. Officials in Tucson say that they responded to reports of smoke and flames coming from a mobile home in the Arizona city where a man had been using a blowtorch to 'remove spiderwebs' from underneath his mobile home. The fire department said that they had arrived to discover that an elderly woman had been removed from the blaze by her son and some neighbours. She had sustained minor injuries while being carried out. All told, it took eleven minutes for the twenty three firefighters who responded to put out the blaze in the mobile home. There were no other injuries reported. The total sustained damages to the mobile home from the fire, which is still being investigated by officials, is yet to be determined by investigators.

Madison Police in Wisconsin reportedly arrested a woman for child neglect after she was caught shoplifting. According to police, officers responded to Woodman's Store for a report of shoplifting, the thirty five-year-old female suspect 'expressed concern' about her two-year-old child who, she said, had been left with a neighbour whilst the child's mother went out on the rob. The address for the child was contacted and after no response at the door, but hearing a child, officers entered the home and found the child alone wearing a dirty nappy. Child protective services took protective custody of the child. The woman was also arrested for child neglect and 'being One Bad Mother'.

A teacher has very resigned after being accused of having an inappropriate two-month relationship with a teenage student. Jaclyn Truman, thirty, allegedly had a relationship with the fifteen-year-old female pupil last year while serving as a substitute teacher at Hagerty High School in Seminole County, Florida. The student told investigators she had consensual sex with Truman 'between five and ten times' in a classroom at the school between March and May 2016, ABC's WFTV reported. Truman had been working as a sign language teacher at Lake Howell High when her employers were informed of the allegations on 2 October. She had reportedly handed in her notice of resignation five days earlier. The former teacher has been charged with two counts of 'lewd acts on a mino'r and booked into the John E Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford.

A thirty one-year-old Wisconsin man is facing multiple charges after telling officers that aliens 'made' him vandalise a home and set it on fire. Anouphong Inphachack was very arrested 5 October and charged with two counts felony arson of a building, two misdemeanour counts of graffiti, two counts criminal damage to property and one misdemeanour count of carrying a concealed weapon. Inphachack, who said he is diagnosed schizophrenic, claimed that aliens made him vandalise the premises. According to the criminal complaint: Over the past three weeks, the Sheboygan Police Department took five separate reports of damage and vandalism to a home and vehicle at the address. The first graffiti was reported on 11 September by new owners of the property, who are in the process of renovating the home to live in. The letters 'DNA' were spray painted on the home in black. Over the next several weeks, the owners also reported the front window of the home was smashed, a dent was kicked in their van and someone tried to set fire to the home on two separate occasions. An officer on patrol near the home noticed 'a suspicious man' sitting in a maroon van at the location, later identified as Inphachack, who pulled a hood up over his head and drove off when the officer approached. The vehicle was stopped and Inphachack was taken into custody on a probation and parole violation warrant. Officers searching Inphachack found a hatchet in his pocket. Must've been quite a big pocket. Or, quite a small hatchet. Anyway, when interviewed by police, Inphachack admitted to trying to set fire to the home twice, painting the letters 'DNA' on the house twice, causing damage to a van by kicking it and busting the kitchen window using his skateboard. Inphachack did not know the house was under new owners and appeared to be targeting the former owners, police said. He also told officers that he has 'an alien virus from outer space' and that the aliens were 'making him upset.' Inphachack said that the aliens 'used black magic' on him and altered his DNA to 'make him shorter.' 'They are switching dimensions all the time. Setting people up for a bad time,' Inphachack told officers during the interview. 'I'm telling you the truth. Alien virus to evolve mankind.' Inphachack also claimed that 'voices in his head' tell him to 'do things.' Inphachack's parents told officers that he refused to take his medication and had not been eating or sleeping of late. They 'repeatedly thanked' officers for taking Inphachack into custody and said that they were 'afraid of what he might do.'

A woman grabbed an employee by the neck during a thoroughly incompetent attempt to rob a restaurant on Monday, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office reports. According to a news release, Nicole Liscom entered the Steak 'n Shake in the early hours of the morning and 'demanded cash.' She had a towel wrapped around her hand and implied that she was armed. During the incident Liscom gabbed one of the employees by the neck and 'made threatening statements.' She subsequently fled the scene without taking anything and was arrested in a nearby parking lot. Liscom has been charged with armed robbery and battery.

A man in China has had his manhood saved after allegedly getting his little chap 'stuck' in a wrench 'by accident.' Well, that's his story, anyway, and he's thoroughly sticking to it. The man's private parts had already become swollen - due to blood flow restriction - when he was taken to the hospital earlier this week. That would have made his eyes water, one suspects. Firefighters and doctors then spent two hours removing the wrench off the man using a disc-cutter. According to Guangzhou Daily, the man, whose identity has not been revealed - much to his relief, no doubt- was taken to Shiji People's Hospital in Guangdong Province, by firefighters on 10 October. He did not wish to explain why he had his penis stuck in the wrench. Tightening his nuts, perhaps? Just guessing. Doctors tried to cut off the wrench, however the material was 'too hard' and would not break. Guangzhou firefighters first used a ring-cutter to make two incisions at the side of the wrench. However, the battery-powered tool was not powerful enough and its blades were worn out. The man was finally freed after an exhaustive two-hour rescue effort. He was said to sustain no lasting injuries although he was advised to 'pee carefully' for the next few days.

Sean Hughes has died at the age of just fifty one from a reported heart attack. Sean was a quite brilliant comedian, a fine actor, a very good novelist, a massive Julian Cope fan(!) and the author of one of this blogger's favourite ever jokes, advice on what to say if Christians unexpectedly turn up at your door and ask if you would like to let Jesus into your home. 'Yeah, He can come in, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait outside!' Richard Bucknall, Sean's former promoter and agent, said that the 'formidable' comic talent had died in hospital on Monday of this week and would be remembered for his 'superb wit.'

Sean was a team captain on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and, before that, had his own Channel Four sitcom, the gloriously potty Sean's Show in the early 1990s. He played an autobiographical lovable loser in the surreal sitcom, in which he received messages from God, Samuel Beckett and his flat's regular burglars on his telephone answering machine, spoke to a spider who was actually Elvis Presley, had a sock that would never dry and made catchphrases out of 'hiya!' and 'buh-bye.' It also had the most excellently self-referential theme tune in TV history!

In 1990, Sean - then aged twenty four - became the youngest person to win the coveted Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival. 'I was told that I had won the Perrier award as I walked off stage after another sweaty performance,' Sean later wrote in the Gruniad Morning Star. 'The judging panel rushed on to the stage to congratulate me. "Will it go to his head?" I doubt it. If the panel had made it ten minutes earlier, they would have seen two people walking out of my award-winning show.' Nica Burns, director of the awards, remembered Sean as 'a huge talent' and 'a very good writer' who had 'instinctive timing from day one.' Sean had a varied career, including a role in Alan Parker's film adaptation of Roddy Doyle's The Commitments, in which he played a talent scout for Eejit Records.

He also appeared in the movies Snakes & Ladders, Puckoon and The Butcher Boy. He played the station master Mister Perks in an award-winning London stage adaptation of The Railway Children. To many, though, he will be best remembered for the six years (1996 to 2002) that he spent on the musical comedy panel show Never Mind The Buzzcocks matching wits with Phill Jupitus and Mark Lamarr. Kate Phillips, the BBC's controller of entertainment commissioning, said Sean's 'unique wit, dry delivery and ability to engage' had helped make it 'one of the most memorable panel shows of all time.' On TV, Sean also starred in ITV drama The Last Detective, where he played Mod, the hapless dog-walking friend of Peter Davison's titular officer, Dangerous Davies.

In 2007, Sean spent a couple of months on Coronation Street playing womanising travelling salesman Pat, who had an affair with Eileen Grimshaw. As well as his role on Corrie, he also appeared in BBC1's Casualty in 2015. Off-screen, Sean wrote novels including It's What He Would've Wanted, following an alienated thirty-something searching for answers after his father's suicide and the excellent The Detainees, about a man who decides to take revenge on an old school bully. 'I went to the hospital with my psoriasis. They gave me a DVD of The Singing Detective and said "Good luck with your life,"' he once joked. Another of his classic one-liners was: 'Everyone grows out of their Morrissey phase. Except Morrissey.' Sean last tweeted on 8 October to say that he was in hospital. He is survived by his two brothers, Alan and Martin.

Roy Dotrice, known for his role as Leopold Mozart in the Oscar-winning film Amadeus, has died aged ninety four. A fine character actor, Guernsey-born Roy gained many new fans in recent years as the narrator of the audio editions of A Song Of Ice & Fire, the series of novels which inspired Game Of Thrones, which he also appeared in. A family statement said that he 'died peacefully on Monday 16 October in his London home surrounded by family.'

Born in May 1923, Roy joined the Royal Air Force and served during World War Two as a wireless operator and air gunner. In 1942, his plane was shot down and he was held as a prisoner of war, where his first taste for the theatre took root, performing concerts for his fellow inmates. Roy was the voice of Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Gregory Pitkin in the early episodes of BBC Radio's long-running radio comedy The Men From The Ministry. He was later succeeded by Ronald Baddiley in the role. He also played the caretaker, Ramsay, alongside Patricia Hayes in the Radio 4 sitcom Know Your Place. Roy played the part of John Aubrey in the play Brief Lives, devised and written by Patrick Garland, a one-man show which saw Dotrice on stage for more than two-and-a-half hours (including the interval, during which he would feign sleep). Premiering in 1967 at the Hampstead Theatre, the play had two tours on Broadway. In 1968, it moved to the Criterion Theatre in the West End, where it would run for four hundred performances before transferring to the Mayfair Theatre. Roy revived the role in 2008, again under Patrick Garland's direction. His narration of George RR Martin's A Song Of Ice & Fire saw him awarded a place in the Guinness Book Of Records in 2004 for the greatest number of characters voiced in an audio book - two hundred and twenty four. During his decades-long career as an actor, Roy won accolades including a TONY award and a BAFTA for best actor in the role of Albert Haddock in the BBC adaptation of AP Herbert's Misleading Cases. In the 1970s, Roy played the title role in the mini-series Dickens Of London. In 1972 he played the Curé Ponosse in the BBC2 TV adaptation of Clochemerle. He became well-known to North American audiences as Father in the 1980s TV series Beauty & The Beast and Father Gary Barrett, a Catholic priest, in the 1990s cult series Picket Fences. In Angel, he played Roger Wyndam-Pryce, the overbearing father of Wesley. An earlier science-fiction role was Commissioner Simmonds in two episodes of Space: 1999. Roy was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1974 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at Pinewood Studios. In June 2010, it was announced that Roy would be playing the role of Grand Maester Pycelle in the HBO series Game Of Thrones. Roy later withdrew from the part for medical reasons and Julian Glover was cast in his place. However, later in the series' run, Roy played another character, Wisdom Hallyne the Pyromancer, in two episodes. He also appeared in Escape, Onion Boys, The War Of The Roses, Public Eye, Late Night Horror, The Jazz Age, Hart To Hart, The A-Team, Fo The Greater Good, Shaka Zulu, LA Law, Mr & Mrs Smith, Babylon Five, Madigen Men and Life Begins and the films The Heroes Of Telmark, Lock Up Your Daughters!, Eliminators, The Cutting Edge and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Roy was married to Kay Newman, a television and stage actress from 1947 until her death in 2007. They had three daughters — Michele, Yvette and Karen — all of whom became actors. He was father-in-law to Edward Woodward (Michele's husband) and Alex Hyde-White (Karen's husband). A keen follower of sport and a stalwart member of the Garrick Club, Roy was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 2008. He is survived by his daughters, along with seven grandchildren and a great-grandson.

On Thursday, dear blog reader, this blogger ventured - once again - to the local medical centre for his annual type two diabetes eye check-up thingy. Where they squirt stingy stuff in ones eyes to make the pupils dilate and caused Keith Telly Topping to look uncannily like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. So, that was fun. And, by 'fun', this blogger means not really fun at all or anything remotely like it.