United Kingdom 01 (Dec 10 to Jan 12)

[kennynah]

Westminster Bridge closed as a result of the protest. Police out enmass guarding parliament houses n lined Whitehall road, where number 10 is situated

Too bad, I can't upload pic from my iPhone.

[kennynah]

Will n Kate are now in ottawa, Canada on a state visit as duke n duchess of cambridge, courtesy of Canadian tax payers who are footing cad1.5mil cost of hosting their future king n queen. Yes, I did not miswrite.
I was very surprised to learn that Canada recognizes QEII as their monarch n head of state!!
From the bbc news coverage, it seems the canadians see themselves as subjects to the British crown...mind boggling

[winston]

And in Canada, you can see places like London with their own Thames River ..

So I think you understand why Quebec would like to separate from the rest of Canada.

The guys in the Prairies are asking themselves why they MUST learn French while the guys in Quebec dont understand why they should have the Queen of England as their Queen.

[kennynah]

the phenomenon above is the atrocious consequence of anglo french wars of the past...

anyways, it's their problem...frankly, i don't care too much about

************************

and on the weather in UK...

it's taken me a while to get use to the idea that the sun sets here at 10pm... i recall we had the longest day just very recently, a day in late June, when the it ended at about 1015pm...

now, as we progress further into summer, the position of the sun has started reversing like a pendulum moving back after reaching its furthest point. consequently, we now have the sun setting around 945pm.

eventually, when we reach the height of winter in late december, the sun will set at 245pm...

how wonderful our natural world is

[kennynah]

British Gas (like our Singapore Power) has just announced it is rising their tariffs...

gas up 18%
electricity up 16%

that could raise each household's bill by alost GBP200/year...

this will take effect on Aug2011

[kennynah]

a 160+ year old tabloid, New of The World, is publishing for the last time this Sunday. its owner is rupert murdoch.

The previous editor was arrested this morning for Phone Hacking charges.. Andy Coulson was also this current PM's Director of Communications briefly...

Cameron gave a press conference this morning and declared he takes all responsibility for hiring this person.

[iam802]

heard this news...

it is so serious..they actually delete SMS message from the phone so that more new message can be received!

[kennynah]

this deleting of sms messages was the last straw... the phone belonged to a murdered teenager and that criminal was just sentenced to a indefinite sentence in prison a few short weeks ago.... and the wound is still raw in people's minds when investigations uncovered this particular hacking incident...from there, they found journalists employed by NoW also tapped into phones of family members of british soldiers who died in battle in Afghanistan... this prompted an even larger outcry from the public who demanded a public enquiry...

rupert murdoch promptly announced the closure of NoW, the tabloid he bought in 1969... some now say he is doing so becos he wants this thorn out of his flesh as he is trying to buy BSkyB ...

[kennynah]

the PM is busy half the time fire fighting... and defending his position and policies against his opposition labour leader to gain popular support from the public. the opposition is doing a great job in discrediting cameron.

i seriously think cameron won't get re-elected..

[LenaHuat]

In my recent 10-year memory, UK and Australia have bred generations of hooligans - drunk, dirty, foul-mouthed, raring for easy fights.