Local Stuff

Happy Money – Wigan ASDA

Posted by Steven Dowd

We went shopping to Wigan ASDA and my daughter bought a Focus magazine, after we got home, she sat down to read it, opened it up and out popped a £5 note with the message attached “This is your Happy Money, God Bless You” with a Happy Face on the sticky note….. So a Big Thanks to whoever put £5 into the Focus magazine at Wigan ASDA, my daughter is chuffed to bits over the discovery of it, which when added to the value… means it brought more happiness than a £5 pound note would normally buy…. Its loads better than just finding a £5 on the floor, because there’s always that ‘small’ guilt that you gain from someone losing it, this was placed with a purpose…. and it worked.    So Thanks again – mystery person…. 🙂

happy-money

Wasp Nest

Posted by Steven Dowd

Just had to have someone call to remove a massive wasps nest from inside the canopy over our front door, he said the nest has probably been there for a few months, I can’t see how we missed it until today, when all of a sudden there were thousands of wasps outside the front door, we noticed that when they landed it was always in the same spot, they then they went into a small hole just beneath the roof tiles and into the hollow space inside the over-door canopy.

Maybe the last few days of rain had kept them all inside the nest and this afternoon they all decided to have a hover party outside the house, all at once.

So having had a guy kill all the wasps that were inside the canopy, we now have all the ones that were away from the nest arriving back here, finding the nest dead and now they are buzzing around like mad things outside the door, and there very pissed off wasps.

St Aelred’s Catholic Technology College

Posted by Steven Dowd

It seem that some local idiot posted a message on an anonymous forum page named "/b/" that he was going to visit St Aelreds School here in Newton today and harm people.

They published a photo of themselves one of them brandishing a Gun, with a notesaying..

Tomorrow last day of School   /b/    We gona fuck up the bullies and leave this world

This is the photo they published

Later in the same forum thread, it seems that theoriginal poster ( alledged poster) added..

OP here, tested it at firing range, we have 2 shotguns as well, its locked in but tomorrow i have key.
St Aelred’s Catholic Technology College ,England
watch BBC

The police were informed and this morning have been at the school, and have just released info that a 19yr old boy has been arrested but not yet questioned.

I wonder who the other hooded idiot is thats on the right of the photo, hiding behind his hood, glasses and cloth pulled up over his face?

The police haven’t said they have two people arrested, so I guess we will have to wait to find out who the masked figure is…

The St Helens Star website has a short breaking news post about the incident

http://www.sthelensstar.co.uk/news/8214587.BREAKING_NEWS___Security_alert__at_school/

POLICE have confirmed they attended a ‘security alert’ at St Aelred’s Catholic Technology College, in Newton-le-Willows this morning.

A police statement read: "Officers were made aware of threats to the college in the early hours of this morning (Friday, 11 June) and appropriate measures were put in place.

"A 19-year-old man from Newton-le-Willows has been arrested on suspicion of threats to kill and has been taken to a police station on Merseyside where he will be interviewed by detectives."

It is understood a squad of armed officers were sent to the school earlier this morning following an intelligence tip-off. Police say there have been no injuries.

The BBC have also picked up the story..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/10294844.stm

Man makes threat to kill at Merseyside school

A 19-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of making threats to kill at a school on Merseyside.

Police received reports of threats to kill in relation to St Aelreds college in Newton-le-Willows in the early hours, a spokeswoman said.

Officers went to the school earlier and "appropriate measures were put in place" she said. They have now left but local patrols have been stepped up.

Nobody was injured in the incident, a spokeswoman said.

 

 

Andy Burnham, the Leigh MP, who is contesting the Labour party leadership is a former pupil of  St Aelred’s secondary school, now known as  St Aelred’s Catholic Technology College.

 

 

 

 

 

 

M.P. Expense’s: Constituency owned London Property

Posted by Steven Dowd

While chatting with a pal yesterday, he mentioned something which I think is a brilliant idea.

Why doesn’t the Council for each area of the UK, each constituency, which sends an MP to sit in the House of Commons buy a property in London, and from then on that property will always be used as the home for which ever M.P. they have elected to represent that Constituency at Government.

In this way, no single M.P. would profit by getting Interest Payments on any personal property, it will stop M.P’s keeping for eternity the furnishings and fittings that they manage to get through their expenses on that personal property.

The Constituency owned London property would be an asset on the Council books/accounts, and all expenses, furnishings will belong for all time to the Constituency.

There would be no home flipping, because they will always have their own home, and have to pay their own home costs, there could be no arguements then over needing a propety in the London area, and the local Council would have full transparency over the costs of housing their M.P. at Westminster.

 

Oxford Ambassador

Posted by Steven Dowd

I am glad to be able to say that my daughter has been selected to participate in the Oxford Access Scheme Ambassador Programme being run by Oxford University, she is one of 37 school children from her age group, from around the UK, apparently around 5000 children from different schools applied to join the scheme, and the 37 successful applicants will represent their Schools as Ambassadors for further education, the programme consists of  four years of residential and one day events leading up to university application, which can be for any university, not necessarily Oxford, she attends St. Aelred’s in Newton-le-Willows. It was the first time that St. Aelred’s had applied and put forward any of their pupils, so I am sure they are as happy as my wife and myself that our daughter got selected

There is a full website that gives all the details, CLICK HERE, from that I have selected the following which describes the programme and its purpose

"The Ambassador Programme is a four-year programme designed to support its participants (Ambassadors) throughout the remainder of their secondary education. The Programme aims to work with both the Ambassadors and, through them, their peers with their post-16 choices. The Programme hopes to encourage the Ambassadors to apply to a university that matches their potential. In addition, the Ambassadors will serve as ambassadors for higher education in their school, helping to inform their peers about the options available to them."

We are invited to attend with my daughter and one of her teachers from St. Aelred’s to the introductory event at Oxford University in December, will tell you more about it after that..

Neolithic Burial Mound

Posted by Steven Dowd
In recent months I have been immersed with some real life stuffs, and following some of my other than www interests.

Along with another local antiquarian Bob Heyes, and with the help of local Archaeologist and TV Presenter Mark Olly alnig with numerous Volunteers, we have been instrumental in the discovery of a Neolithic Burial Mound.

we have a few known mounds locally, windmill hill, and Castle Hill are both listed in this megalithic website, but we have other mounds that are not, and this mound we excavated was one of these lesser known local ones


Lady Hill Mound

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postnuke 2 Joomla

Posted by Steven Dowd

I have now done a few test conversions of a full working postnuke website into a joomla one Even managed to transfer all the forum posts from pnforum into joomlaboard. it wasn’t too difficult, finding the correct scripts via google and other forums was the hardest part. then i had to seperatly transfer all the pnforum posts into a standalone verion of phpbb, then later when i had inported all the users, weblinks, articles, categories etc from postnuke into joomla, imported the forum posts from the standalone phpbb, their seems no way to directly import the posts pnforum 2 joomlaboard and not loose the users details etc. So now i know I can do it, i suppose i have to decide am I going to, and if so when?

Steven Dowd

Nuke or Joomla!

Posted by Steven Dowd

I am in a dilemma, I have used postnuke for years, but lately am very disheartened with it, it seems to be lagging behind other systems, particulally Joomla. I have used postnuke for websites since day one of nukes creation, I have been stood back from the community for quite some years due to my legal hassles, but have always kept up with whats been going on, at the moment I feel the system is failing to keep up, to make the system do some of the pretty things joomla does, i would have to find 3rd part addons etc etc, and then worry whether the authors would upkeep them, yet Joomla does most all things straight out of the box. If I had to list the particular things which have impressed me with Joomla, which are missing in postnuke I would have to list them as follows.

  • Built in Image system, image uploads, content image insertion, Image admin for all sections, groups, links, contacts, menu items etc
  • Front page management, article / news order management, ordering for front page items, ordering for links, sections, contacts etc
  • Module, Components, Themes Installation system.
  • Simpler permissions, Groups and User management.

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