Hro tngr txts plc drng rbbry

Teenagers, eh? Surly little herberts. They talk to adults so little you'd almost think they'd lost the ability to communicate - unless, that is, it's by mobile phone. They virtually always have a mobile clamped to their spotty ears, and when they haven't they'll texting. Or, as they would have it, thyd b txtg. Teachers are forever complaining about their pupils' mobiles in the classroom and many confiscate any they see, otherwise the little buggers'll be texting away and not listen to a word Teach says.

There's a family in London who are going to be glad their own teenage son in a text addict, though - because he managed to surreptitiously use his mobile to send a text message asking neighbours to phone the police while he, his siblings, parents and housekeeper lay tied up on the bathroom floor of their Hendon home during a £60,000 armed robbery.

His mother, who was punched in the face by the raiders when she refused to tell them where the safe was located, explains: "He goes to an Orthodox school and they teach themselves to text with their phones in their pockets. It came in very handy."

We imagine that when he finds out that the boy secretly texts in class, the rabbi won't be too angry with him. Good lad!

Boris Johnson: £250K is "chicken feed"

Boris Johnson, eh? We never quite know what to make of him. As a Tory politician, we have to hate him on principle - but then he goes and commissions a London School of Economics report which utterly demolishes a fair old chunk of anti-immigrant racist philosophy. But next thing you know, it turns out he tried to claim back the cost of a Royal British Legion poppy wreath on expenses so you have to hate him again. You just can't tell - is he yet another Conservative scumbag or is he a good bloke?

Boris Johnson must keep his head in a bucket to be so blind to the realities of the everyday lives of most of the people he represents if he thinks £250K is chicken feed. Hmm...come to think of it, that explains the hairstyle too.

Boris is paid just short of £140,000 per year as the Mayor of London, which is a pretty good wage by anyone's standards - he does a very important job, after all, and the people of London obviously have enough faith in him to have voted for him to get the position. People have been wondering just lately if he's truly committed to the job though, because he also writes a column every week for the Daily Telegraph and he gets another £250,000 for doing so. £390,000 per annum - tasty.

David Cameron, the Tory leader, has instructed his MPs to give up all outside work because the public are of the opinion that they should focus wholly on their Government jobs and he wants to get them on his side before Gordon Brown thinks of doing the same thing, in the hope that he may be able to persuade the last remaining Labour voters to vote for the Conservatives instead. But Boris thinks it is “wholly reasonable” that he continues writing his columns because, he says, "I happen to write extremely fast. I don’t see why on a Sunday morning I shouldn’t knock off an article, if someone wants to pay me for that article then that’s their lookout and of course I make a substantial donation to charity." Give yourself a moment to recover from reading the terms "knock off" and "column" in a paragraph about Boris Johnson - we know that it creates disturbing mental images.

Despite his distinctly uncharitable attempt to recover the cost of the wreath, he's not lying on that last point - he does give £50,000 to charity every year, so once again we all have to start wondering if maybe he's a good chap after all.

However, when asked by the BBC's HardTalk television prpgramme whether it's right for him to receive the quarter of a million pounds in addition to his mayoral salary, he replies: "It's chicken feed."

Why did the chicken cross the road? Well, it just happened to be in Knightsbridge and simply couldn't resist popping into Harrods for a tin of Beluga, dahling...

You must have some very well-fed chickens, Boris - even Peter Viggers' ducks would be jealous of them! What do they eat - truffles and caviar? Did you know that rather a high percentage of the people who live in London, the people you are supposed to speak for and represent, have never tasted truffles and caviar? Instead, they have to try to make ends meet on their low or average wages; eating Asda Smart Price frozen meals and whatever they can get in Aldi (you might not have heard of those two places - they're a bit like Fortnum and Mason's, only they sell Lambrini instead of Krug and people usually go there on the bus rather than in the Maybach)? There's a lot of them who can't even afford that: once they've used up their pathetic dole money they have to hunt for food in bins - surely you've seen them when you're out on your bike? Or are you so blind to the realities of the harsh lives led by thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in your city that you don't even notice them, you greedy bastard?

"Londoners struggling through the recession will be astounded that their Mayor is so out of touch with reality," says John Biggs, the Labour deputy leader of the London Assembley. "How can we have any faith in a Mayor who believes earning more than ten times the majority of those whose interests he is supposed to represent amounts to nothing more than chicken feed?"

How indeed. Meanwhile, if Boris doesn't start noticing a bit more of what's going on around him, Ken Livingstone might just be with a chance at getting his old job back in 2012. We don't like him very much either, incidentally.

MR

Cyclists to become mobile pollution sensors

Cough, hack, cough, splutter! A team of - cough - researchers from Imperial College London - wheeze, cough - is carrying out a programme which will see - hack, cough, cough - pedestrians and cyclists equipped with sensor units to monitor urban air pollution. Cough.

Motor vehicles contribute a large percentage of the air pollution found in urban environments.
Copyright-free image from Wikipedia.

Excuse me one moment, just finding my inhaler, wheeze. Scientists, environmentalists and those with respiratory complaints - cough, cough - have become highly concerned about PM10 particles (sooty specks smaller than 10μm found in traffic exhaust fumes) which have been linked to cases of asthma, heart disease and a number of other ailments. Though not as well known - hack, cough, pant - as carbon monoxide and other compounds associated with internal combustion engines, PM10s are a very real worry. Wheeze.

New EU law dictates that the UK must cut down on nitrous dioxide pollution, a compound also found in exhaust fumes, cough."There is a lot that we do not know about air quality in our cities and towns because the current generation of large stationary sensors don't provide enough information," says Professor John Polak, the head of the scheme which is to be carried out in London, Cambridge, Gateshead and Leicester. The new sensors, which can measure - wheeze, hack, splutter - five different types of pollution, will enable scientists to more closely study localised air pollution - pant, cough, wheeze - in urban areas as well as to produce 3D "pollution cloud" models which will then allow experts to advise change if street planning - ie; the location of traffic signals - is causing a build-up of fumes in that area.

As a cyclist who - cough, wheeze - regularly rides in urban areas, Acid Rabbi would be pleased to offer his services to the team and would like to point out that, should they choose to take him up on the offer, they will be able to save money -cough, pant, hack - on the sensors and simply listen to his lungs right after he'd ridden any more than 100 metres. Wheeze.

Met. Police face further probe over death of G20 Tomlinson

The Independent Police Complaints Commission will hold a further investigation into the Metroplitan Police's conduct following the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in April this year, it has been announced. This will be separate from existing enquiries into his death and police conduct during the protest.

Mr. Tomlinson, 47, was returning home from his job as a newspaper vendor when he was hit with a baton and pushed from behind by officers, an incident that was captured on video and has been instrumental in probes into harsh police actions during the protests. There has been no evidence that he was in any way involved with the protests. He later died of internal injuries.

Ian Tomlinson, who was not involved with the G20 protests, was struck and
pushed to the ground by police officers. He later died of internal injuries.

CCTV footage showed that he had earlier approached a police cordon and appeared to ask to be allowed through so that he could continue making his way home, but permission was refused. A City worker also supplied photographs showing Mr. Tomlinson earlier in the day talking to officers after a police vehicle had come into contact with him - however, this has been referred to as a "gentle nudge" and is not thought to have contributed to his injuries.

During the inquest into his death, police made no mention of their earlier contact with the man leading many to accuse them of either deliberately misinformed the public or failed to make information available. IPCC deputy chairman Deborah Glass has said that both members of the public and MPs have raised serious concerns about the "state of knowledge" that police had concerning the incident.

If found guilty of either charge, the investigation will come as a serious blow to the Met's reputation which fallen steeply in public eyes since the events in question, with many people feeling angry over accusations that officers purposely obscured their badges - allowing them to commit unlawful acts without risking identification - and incited violent actions amongst members of the public, thus enabling them to react with greater force than would otherwise have been deemed acceptable, which is likely to bring about further enquiries and calls for a reform of police powers and regulations.

Walking Fish Spotted in Thames

Environment Agency officers rushed to a small, muddy bank of the River Thames in London recently as reports came in that a large walking fish had been observed to leave the water, stroll across the mud for a while and then jump back into the river where it swam away from sight. A number of eyewitnesses, all of them elderly, were sitting on a bench near the bank and saw the mysterious fish.

"I'm 74, I am," Jakob "Stinky Jake the Tramp" Cohen told Acid Rabbi's sources. "But my eyes is sharp as the day is long, they is. I saw that fish walk up out of the water bold as you like. It walked around for a bit then it jumped back in there and swum orf, 'onest it did." Others have confirmed his version of events. "Yeah, I saw it too," says Ethel Grimebotham, 82, "what auld Jakey 'ere says is true an' all. He might seem like 'e ain't the full ticket but 'is eyes are like an 'awk's, they are. I saw the fish too, and I ain't never seen nuffing like it afore in me 'ole life."

Stinky Jake and Rotherhithe Ronny spend most days sitting on (or under) the bench where they saw the strange walking fish.

However, Lucy Lasticke, spokesperson for the Environment Agency is not convinced. "Of course we take sightings of this type seriously," she claimed. "We have too, because we can never be sure what it is that a member of the public has observed. If we'd been able to attend early sightings of non-native creatures such as the coypu or the mink, we'd have avoided the widespread damage caused to our natural ecosystems by those species. The fact that this creature was described by Mr. Cohen as a walking fish suggests that - if he genuinely did see such an animal - it may have been some type of catfish, which have been known to cause largescale damage in various rivers into which they've been accidentally or deliberately released."

Back at Stinky Jake and Ethel's bench, their acquaintance Rotherhithe Ronny takes up the story. "I bin livin' round 'ere even longer'n what these two 'ave," he says, and Jake and Ethel nod in agreement. "Back when I were a nipper I used to work on the barges, see, over ninety year ago, what used to carry coal'n that up the river to the City. I seen fings in that there water what'd make yer 'air stand on end, so I 'ave, but I ain't never seen no fish like that one. It were Stinky Jake 'ere what saw it first, but I saw it close-up 'cos I reckoned the poor fing looked bit firsty like so I went down to where it was to offer it a drop of me wine. It didn't want none though, just sat there lookin' at me."

When asked if our correspondent was correct in feeling he detected a certain note of disbelief in Ms. Lasticke's voice as she recounts her side of the tale, he was informed that he was quite right. "This fish is not the first call we've had from Jake and his cronies," she explains. "We get at least three or four every week from either him or one of the others - there's about twelve of them who hang about that bench all day. They go to pick up their pension money, then it's straight to the off-licence for a bottle or two and then they'll be there till the sun goes down. They see all manner of things - the most memorable so far this month have been a rat the size of a camel with humps to match - actually, that one turned out to be true, they're becoming quite common in London these days, a swarm of enormous bluebottles - oddly enough, on the same day that the police carried out one of their periodic attempts to discourage them from congregating there, something that looked sort of like a cross between a giant snake and a shrew with antlers on its head and at least six or seven pink elephants."

"'Ere," said Stinky Jake when informed of Ms. Lasticke's disbelief, "never mind all that. You ain't got no small change 'ave yer? I ain't eaten nuffink fer two days. I'll give yer my address in Ireland and I'll pay it back, honest I will guv'nor." The correspondent saved time by simply buying him a 12 can pack of Special Brew from the nearest shop.