CaaC (John)

Hope he is gone sooner than later, money is more important to him than the United top he wears. Paul Pogba: Man Utd midfielder travels with the squad for pre-season tour Paul Pogba is in Manchester United's travelling squad for the club's four-match 18-day pre-season tour of Australia, Singapore and China. The France midfielder, 26, has been absent from training this week with boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's permission. There has been speculation about his long-term future this summer and in June, he said: "now could be a good time to find a new challenge". On Friday, agent Mino Raiola stated again that Pogba wants to leave United. Summer signings Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Daniel James are also both in the travelling squad, as is Romelu Lukaku, who has been linked with a move to Inter Milan. Brazilian midfielder Fred and defender Matteo Darmian were both excused from Sunday's trip for personal reasons but are expected to link up with the United squad at some point before they return to England on 26 July. Alexis Sanchez only finished Copa America duty with Chile last night and wouldn't have been involved, even without the hamstring injury he sustained in the third-place play-off defeat by Argentina. United are due to land in Perth on Monday afternoon local time. The play Perth Glory on 13 July and Leeds United on 17 July before flying to Singapore for a game against Inter Milan on 20 July. They finish their trip with a game against Tottenham in Shanghai on 25 July. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48899454

July 5, 2019 Hubble Watches Stars in Bloom This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows bright, colourful pockets of star formation blooming like roses in a spiral galaxy named NGC 972. The orange-pink glow is created as hydrogen gas reacts to the intense light streaming outwards from nearby newborn stars; these bright patches can be seen here amid dark, tangled streams of cosmic dust. Astronomers look for these telltale signs of star formation when they study galaxies throughout the cosmos, as star formation rates, locations, and histories offer critical clues about how these colossal collections of gas and dust have evolved over time. New generations of stars contribute to — and are also, in turn, influenced by — the broader forces and factors that mould galaxies throughout the universe, such as gravity, radiation, matter, and dark matter. German-British astronomer William Herschel is credited with the discovery of NGC 972 in 1784. Astronomers have since measured its distance, finding it to be just under 70 million light-years away. Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency) Image credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, L. Ho https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2019/hubble-watches-stars-in-bloom

Bloody hell, look at the size of its claws Iguana loves tennis

Watched this last night with the wife and we both quite enjoyed it, a wartime drama based on a true story, The Avon Couple (2004), I would give this an 8/10 rating.

@nudge @Bluewolf "ET go home, home..." Dog Confused By Dancing Alien

Good shots them @Stick With Azeem, this one (below) looks just like a Kingfisher?

Stunning Northern Lights in Iceland VIDEO

"His current £200,000 a week contract expires in 2020 and the club are looking to secure his long-term future in Manchester......." https://talksport.com/football/475390/david-de-gea-premier-league-top-earners-wages-salary/

Bloody hell, I loved listening to him especially at the Grand National, R.I.P. John McC. John McCririck dead aged 79 as tributes for racing pundit pour in Racing pundit John McCririck has died aged 79. The former Channel 4 racing pundit's death was reported on Racing Post. McCririck is also a well-known supporter of both Newcastle United and Coventry City. In early 2018, McCririck contracted the flu which resulted in a chest infection. The illness caused him to have dramatic weight loss. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/john-mccririck-dead-aged-79-as-tributes-for-racing-pundit-pour-in/ar-AADTMeC?li=BBoPWjQ

Remembering when emperors planned their own extravagant fireworks displays John F. Kelly © Melchior Kisel, engraver. National Gallery of Art Library, David K.E. Bruce Fund/Melchior Kisel, eng... Fireworks in Vienna’s Imperial Palace gardens marked Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I’s marriage to Margarita Teresa of Spain to “represent with fire the ardent love of the wedded pair.” No matter what is launched into the skies over Washington on this year’s Fourth of July, it is unlikely to include flying dragons. John Bate would be disappointed. Bate was an Englishman who in 1635 published an illustrated book on how to create what he called “fireworks.” These ranged from the spinning discs of sparks known as fire wheels — “The making of fire wheels consisteth onely in the placing of Rockets,” he explained, “with the mouth of one towards the tayle of another, round about certain moveable wheels” — to flying dragons. Flying dragons, Bate admitted, are “somewhat troublesome to compose.” The dragon itself is made “eyther of dry and light wood … or of thin whalebones covered in Muscovie glasse and painted over.” (Muscovy glass is a type of thin, translucent mica.) Once you had fabricated your dragon, you attached a rocket to its belly and looped the contraption over a rope stretched between two buildings. Light the fuse and — voilà! — look at that dragonfly! Bate’s book and 19 others from the 17th and 18th centuries are on display through Sept. 6 in the National Gallery of Art Library in the East Building. The free exhibit — open weekdays from 10 to 5 — is called “In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book.” Stop by if you want to ooh and ahh in refined, air-conditioned comfort. Fete books were created to recount the lavish entertainments that marked religious festivals, coronations, state visits, military victories and other public celebrations. Some, like Bate’s, were akin to instruction manuals. Others featured etchings and engravings that sought to capture the events for anyone who might have missed them. © Etched by Romeyn de Hooghe, National Gallery of Art Library, Nell and Robert Weidenhammer Fund/Etche... A circa 1686 engraving shows fireworks displays in Brussels celebrating a military victory by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. “In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book” is a new exhibit at National Gallery of Art Library. Like fireworks, the books on display come in various sizes, from Bate’s paperback-sized guide to large atlases with fold-out illustrations. The detail is amazing. The engraving of a festival in Brussels in the 1680s commemorating the capture of Buda, Hungary, from the Turks by Leopold I, shows a tree of sparklers ablaze on the right of a town square while pyrotechnics are launched on the left. Fireworks snake into the sky — and into the sizable crowd. Etcher Romeyn de Hooghe included men trying to pat out errant sparks, and dogs and horses cowering in fear. The challenge for the artists, in those days before cameras, was how to depict fireworks. How do you capture a colourful, fluid, three-dimensional experience in two dimensions on a static black-and-white page? Some artists rendered the fireworks as feathery plumes, others as squiggly spermatozoa. Some of the fireworks are orderly, like placid fountains. Others are wild and energetic, as in an engraving from 1742-43 of displays marking the coronation of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII. The paths of the fireworks resemble crooked lightning bolts, white against a black background, like the phosphorous glow that burns in your retinas after a camera flash. How did yesterday’s fireworks shows compare with today’s? “The main change is that today’s public fireworks displays are predominantly aerial, whereas in the 17th century the majority of the displays were ground-based fountains, fire wheels and other forms with limited reach,” exhibit curator Yuri Long, the gallery’s rare book librarian, wrote to me in an email. “Rockets were generally fired vertically only for the grand finale. As technology and ambition advanced, more rockets were added throughout the performance to enhance the narrative.” That there was a narrative is the big difference. All that sound and fury signified something, telling stories that were often taken from classical mythology. “For instance, a multistage display acting out the story of the fall of the titans, with the sun standing in for King Louis XIV and replacing Zeus’s thunderbolt,” was a symbol to the audience of the king’s military might, Long wrote. Johann Georg II, elector of Saxony, pulled out all the stops when his three younger brothers paid a visit to him in Dresden in 1678. “A giant grotto represented the mouth of hell, and sculptures of Hercules, the three Furies, and the three-headed hound Cerberus were assembled,” writes Long in the exhibit brochure. In his large illustration, engraver Johann Alexander Boener tried to capture the manic scene: bombs bursting in air, fire wheels spinning, infernal imps dancing around the mouth of the underworld. The nobleman is said to have designed the fireworks display himself, fretting over every detail. Imagine that. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/remembering-when-emperors-planned-their-own-extravagant-fireworks-displays/ar-AADQu3u

Viking Burial Ships Uncovered in 'Sensational' Archaeological Find Aristos Georgiou Archaeologists have discovered two Viking burial ships in the Swedish municipality of Uppsala. A find of this type is rare in the country. In fact, only around ten discoveries of this kind have been made to date in the Scandinavian nation, according to researchers. "This is a unique excavation, the last burial ship was examined 50 years ago," Anton Seiler, an archaeologist who works with several Swedish museums, told The Local. The two vessels—which Saeiler describes as a "sensational" find—were excavated near the grounds of a vicarage in the village of Gamla Uppsala last fall. These types of burials, where individuals were placed in full-sized boats, were not available to the common folk. They are thought to have been reserved for individuals with high status. "It is a small group of people who were buried in this way," Seiler said. "You can suspect that they were distinguished people in the society of the time since burial ships, in general, are very rare." The archaeologists only found the remains of one individual. However, as is common with other burial ships in the region, this person was laid to rest beside several objects—including weapons, shields and a comb—they may have been given to take into the afterlife. The team also found the remains of animals, including a horse and a dog. © John van Hasselt/Sygma via Getty Images) The individuals were buried in a boat like this one. Although it remains unclear when this burial took place, most grave ships of this type originate from the Viking Age (793–1066 A.D.) of Scandinavian history or the era immediately preceding it, which is known as the Vendel Period (500-793 A.D.) In recent months, researchers also discovered another ship associated with a burial practice in the Scandinavian region. Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) discovered a huge 66-foot-long Viking ship using an advanced new ground-penetrating radar technique in Østfold County, southeastern Norway. The radar data that the NIKU team collected indicated that the ship was once embedded within a large burial mound which was gradually destroyed by farming activity over time. Surprisingly, the ship appeared to have survived totally intact, despite lying just 20 inches below the topsoil. "This find is incredibly exciting as we only know three well-preserved Viking ship finds in Norway, [all] excavated a long time ago," Knut Paasche, head of the Department of Digital Archaeology at NIKU and an expert on Viking ships, said in a statement. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/viking-burial-ships-uncovered-in-sensational-archaeological-find/ar-AADS4vH

NEVER try and set up a new house phone and combined handset when you have been drinking, ordered a new phone and handset from Argos yesterday afternoon, it arrived around 1900 hrs after I had sunk a bottle of wine, the wife headed off to bed so I thought I would be a smart arse and add all the telephone numbers in both phone and handset, and FUCKED if I could work out how to add them, even trying to read the operation instructions and I gave up after an hour and headed off to bed. I got up this morning, had a coffee, looked at the operation instructions, tossed them to one side and just ended up putting all the telephone numbers in by hand and fuck the manual, did that in about 15 minutes, both phones now in full operation mode.

Bastards, they need shooting let alone the bird. Marsh harrier 'shot' near Norfolk nature reserve A bird of prey thought to be part of a breeding pair on a nature reserve has been found shot, a wildlife group said. The male marsh harrier was found injured by a dog walker at Sculthorpe Moor, near Fakenham, Norfolk, according to the reserve owner the Hawk and Owl Trust. The find was reported to staff at the reserve, but when they got to the spot only a few feathers were left. Since the find, a male bird breeding on the reserve has not been seen. The Trust said this year's chicks were at risk because both parents were needed to supply enough food for their offspring. The Hawk and Owl Trust said it had reported the find, on 21 June, to Norfolk Police as the marsh harrier is a protected species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The trust said, "the finder was unable to get to the bird to rescue, but did take a photograph which records the kind of injury that shows the bird had been shot". Nigel Middleton, Sculthorpe Moor reserve manager, said: "Illegal persecution is such a problem and it's inexcusable. Having it happen on our doorstep has come as a real shock. "Marsh harriers are the reason that Sculthorpe is a reserve. This is just horrifying. "If anyone knows anything please let the police know. Let's bring this criminal to justice." Norfolk Police said officers were "investigating reports of an injured marsh harrier found in Sculthorpe". Source: British Trust for Ornithology https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-48842212

A giant heat dome over Alaska is set to threaten all-time temperature records Ian Livingston Upper-level high pressure is maxed out and anchored over southern Alaska Friday evening per model simulations. (TropicalTidbits.com) All-time heat records are at risk in Alaska in coming days as a massive and abnormally intense area of high-pressure locks in and strengthens over the region. This heat dome is expected to produce temperatures near and above the highest values ever recorded for multiple days, particularly in southern parts of the state. It’s the latest in a slew of record-shattering heat events in Alaska. Anchorage is predicted to test or best its highest-temperature ever recorded of 85 degrees (set in 1969) on five straight days between July 4 and 8. It could even flirt with 90 degrees. The National Weather Service in Anchorage wrote that most of southern Alaska will be “downright hot with many locations in the 80s and even low 90s.” Anchorage’s nighttime lows may settle only in the mid-60s during this hot stretch, which is close to its average high at this time of year. “This 7-day forecast contains the warmest 1-day, warmest 2-day, warmest 3-day, warmest 4-day, warmest 5-day, warmest 6-day, and warmest 7-day period on record for Anchorage,” tweeted Alaska climatologist Brian Brettschneider. Late-day temperatures compared to normal over the next week in Alaska per the American GFS model. (TropicalTidbits.com) This heat wave is the latest in a nonstop barrage of warm weather for the northernmost state. It comes right on the heels of a June that was well above average and filled with wildfires that are persisting and/or growing into July. Spring was disturbingly warm before that, and so was winter. It also follows a historic heat wave in Europe, which shattered records. Alaska’s temperatures have shifted abruptly higher in the past few years, and it’s a similar story across the Arctic more broadly because of climate change. Sea ice surrounding the state is at record-low levels. The open water and lack of ice have elevated ocean temperatures more than 4.5 degrees (2.5 Celsius) above normal. The combination of the unusually warm coastal waters, the intense dome of high pressure over land, and near peak energy from the sun (just 10 days removed from the summer solstice) will act to maximize the potential for historically high temperatures. Forecasts for upper-level high pressure over Alaska are at maximum for climatology later in the week. (Tomer Burg) Even before the development of this latest heat dome, strong high pressure has frequently sprawled over Alaska in recent weeks, leading to unusually high temperatures. Alaska climatologist Rick Thoman tweeted that Anchorage, Kotzebue, Talkeetna and Yakutat all posted their warmest June on record, while Nome, King Salmon and McGrath logged their second-warmest June. Record-breaking temperatures to close June helped the monthly averages soar this high. As one example, it hit 92 in Northway, near the eastern border with Canada on June’s final day. In southeast Alaska, where moderate to extreme drought has persisted for about a year, Juneau tied its third warmest day on record on June 28. The city also just completed its warmest five-day stretch on record (since 1936), according to Brettschneider. While this blast of heat will eventually ease next week, the forecast calls for more warmer-than-normal conditions later into July and August. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/environment/a-giant-heat-dome-over-alaska-is-set-to-threaten-all-time-temperature-records/ar-AADR8NU?ocid=chromentp

May 15, 2019 Video: Fly over Mount Sharp on Mars After spending the better part of a year exploring Mars’ Vera Rubin Ridge, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has moved to a new part of Mount Sharp. Project Scientist Ashwin Vasavada gives a tour of the rover's new home in the “clay unit,” as well as other areas scientists are excited to visit. Ever wanted to visit Mars? A new animated video shows what it would be like to soar over Mount Sharp, which NASA's Curiosity rover has been climbing since 2014. This video highlights several regions on the mountain that are intriguing to Curiosity's scientists, chief among them what the science team calls the "clay-bearing unit," where Curiosity has just started analyzing rock samples. The aerial tour also shows the roving science lab's proposed path in the years to come. Intriguing targets include the rocky cliffs of the "sulfate-bearing unit," where sulfate minerals may indicate the area was drying up or becoming more acidic in ancient times, and Gediz Vallis, where a river may have carved a path through the sulfate unit. This animation shows a proposed route for NASA's Curiosity rover, which is climbing lower Mount Sharp on Mars. The annotated version of the map labels different regions that scientists working with the rover would like to explore in coming years. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/University of Arizona/JHUAPL/MSSS/USGS Astrogeology Science Center Full image and caption Each region represents a different period in the history of Mount Sharp, which rises about 3 miles (5 kilometres) from the base of Gale Crater. Curiosity's scientists want to visit these places to learn more about the history of water on the mountain, which slowly dried up as the climate changed. Understanding how these changes occurred on Mount Sharp may provide new insights into why water — one of the most critical resources for life — disappeared from Mars billions of years ago. NASA plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024 as a step toward human exploration of Mars. The technologies that will be developed for the Moon will make future robotic and human missions to Mars possible. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/video-fly-over-mount-sharp-on-mars

The wee grandson's here for the night, just trod on a bit of his Lego...fucking OUCH!!!!