Most of today's news is fairly grim, but here's a reason to be cheerful:
Of course, that was the easy bit.
A real challenge would be to convince the BBC's dimwitted web writers/editors to use the acronym "NASA", not "Nasa".
Note to Auntie: It's not as if there are no clues on the web. You could even crib it from the NASA logo:
And here's one from the 10th:
Turns out that the driver was visiting the house arrowed in the first pic... the house with a huge vacant space in front of it and with the vacant driveway.
Go figure.
Harrow Brook again. The supply of contaminant seemed to have stopped and a little overnight drizzle had diluted things a bit, but it was still noticeably blue. We walked upstream again from the Harrowbrook roundabout, taking pics until we came to the end of the accessible bank-side:
Progress being foiled, we back-tracked to the car and drove to a spot upstream where the brook enters the industrial estate.
There, next to the Ashby Canal, we found where the blue stuff was still trickling into the brook:
We traced the outflow to a ditch which was still bright blue, where the foot-bridge was adorned with a couple of "portable loo" panels:
A little further up we found where the blue stuff was entering the ditch... a pipe leading from the unit in the corner of the industrial estate:
Even further up, on the other side of the A47, there was no blue:
Now, I'm not an expert on these matters, but they say that if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck...
so maybe this one is a toilet-duck?
Here's what's in the compound of that unit in the corner of the industrial estate:
No names, no pack-drill. Nothing is proven yet. The E.A. can call this one.
The usually-clear Harrow Brook in Hinckley had turned an almost-opaque vivid blue this morning. I walked the bank upstream for about a mile but didn't find the source of the contamination. The voles, the ducks and even the rats were conspicuously absent.
It looks like some ne'er-do-well on the industrial estate had decided to dump something naughty in it. There's a slim chance that it might be a bona fide watercourse-tracing dye but I'm told that they usually use a green dye for that sort of thing.
After chatting to the local PCSO about it I reported it to the Environment Agency who said that they would send out a local response unit to investigate.
I'll be checking it again on Sunday, if it's still bad I'll get more pics, with a better camera, for the E.A.'s investigation.
When me and my Dad say goodbye to each other we generally shake hands, it's what we do now that he finds embracing too uncomfortable. It works for us.
During my regular visits to the hospital I usually run into a few of the patients who were fellow inmates a year back, we usually shake hands too, it's a sign not just of friendship but also of us having been through so much shite together. And also because hands are the best bet for contact points due to us all having to do the hygiene routine every time we visit - using the hand-gel dispensers is so ingrained that it's a tad like turning Buddhist prayer-wheels, you can't pass one by without having a go. The one exception is my good friend and fellow patient Nick, A.K.A. "Quaver Nick", he likes to do hugs. Mind you, he does bowl from the pavilion end...
But just lately the hand-shaking thing has gone to a new level. A couple of days ago the postman wanted to shake my hand after delivering a parcel, I thought it was unusual but I went with it. And last night at the posh Italian restaurant in town the head waiter went for the handshake when we arrived... and again on the way out... then the head chef wanted a go... by that time I was in full flow so the junior waiter standing by the door got one too.
What's going on? Has the world gone Über-polite while I've not been paying attention? Have I become an unwitting minor celebrity?
Or am I turning into...
