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Poor old Prince Philip has been getting into trouble again for making what was seen by the media as an inappropriate remark, during a tour of Devon.

Apparently he asked a young sea cadet where she worked and she told him that it was in a club.

The eighty-eight year old Prince then asked ‘Is it a strip club?’ and then quickly retracted the remark by saying that obviously it wouldn’t that type of club because it was far too cold for that. The sea cadet and her friends had laughed at the joke and had certainly not taken offence. They said that he was just getting to know people and joining in like anyone else would.

However, the media in UK has been having a field day (or week) denouncing The Duke of Edinburgh for making another gaffe in public. It wasn’t a gaffe; it was a friendly joke that caused no offence and made people laugh.

Surely the media has more important things that it should be discussing like when UK troops are going to be pulled out of Afghanistan and when we are going to get a new government. Then there is the situation with rising crime rates and Britain’s climbing debts and…………….ad infinitum.

If the media in UK is not sticking its nose into people’s private lives in pursuit of a ‘juicy’ story, it is trying to twist something trivial and make it into the scandal of the year. No wonder sales of newspapers have dropped.

I wonder what The Queen thought of Prince Philip’s remark!

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• Duke of Edinburgh asks female sea cadet if she works at a strip club (telegraph.co.uk)

If you work in health insurance as an agent, for a company, or even as a broker, you will know how important it is to get a regular supply of quality leads.

No leads means no sales, so such a lot of time is spent in searching for health insurance leads. Norvax can solve that problem for quickly. No more sitting around trying to scratch up a few leads.

Hull City Council are to honour poet Philip Larkin on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. They have spent £200,000 on 65 giant fibre glass toads which will be displayed in different locations for ten weeks during the summer of this year. (Ten weeks of summer…now there’s another funny twist to the story. When did we ever get that?)

The idea is to honour two of his poems: ‘Toads’ and ‘Toads Revisited’. Philip Larkin did much of his work whilst working as a librarian at Hull University.

While I admire Philip Larkin’s work enormously, I still cannot help but see this as a shocking waste of tax payers money. Residents of Hull now have that bill added to their council payments for the year.

Here in England we live in a society which is faced with further cuts in essential services every day because there just isn’t any money. The country is broke!

Jobs is local councils are being cut, refuse collection services are cut, investment in schools is cut, road repairs is cut, and Hull City Council spend so much money on temporary fibre glass toads. Someone needs a severe lesson on what restricted budget and priorities means.

I wonder if they ever heard the saying, ‘fiddling while Rome burns’?

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• Poet Philip Larkin's death marked with giant toads (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hull organises Philip Larkin tourist tour for 25th anniversary of death (telegraph.co.uk)

Anybody who works in insurance will find themselves in constant need of fresh, good health insurance leads. These are sometimes hard to find.

There is an easy solution though and all it takes it a quick look at Prospect Zone. Solve you problems fast ans start making money.

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Most areas of England have been invaded by the fast growing Japanese Knotweed plant which grows at a rate of a metre a month and causes damage to tarmac pavements, buildings, drains and other structures. It is very difficult to kill and it also kills off our native species by literally smothering them.

The Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau is to introduce a bug which is a kind of louse and sucks the sap from the plants, killing them off, at two secret locations. Tests on ninety native plants have shown that the bug will not attack other plants, but many local river authorities, including the South Cumbria Rivers Trust have their doubts about it.

Historically, trying to introduce biological controls into a non native environment has not been successful and there are serious concerns about introducing these insects. It seems that river authorities in Cumbria will find their own methods for dealing with this problem weed.

If this experiment gets out of hand how do they propose to stop it? Has anyone thought about that? Once these insects are released into the wild there is certainly no way of putting them back into the bottle again.

On the other hand, if it should be successful and the lice suck their way through all the Japanese Knotwood out there, what will they eat next. Will it be our native rhododendrons, or rose bushes, our oak trees or wildflowers?

Tampering with the balance of nature is a dangerous gave with unpredictable results.

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• Biocontrol in the UK: will they be singing, "Where have all the flowers gone"? (tagline: When will they ever learn) (scienceblogs.com)
• Alien v predator: moth out to kill Japanese knotweed (guardian.co.uk)

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Trips to the Far East for pleasure, or business, are not as expensive as they used to be and it has become quite common for people to jet off to Hong Kong and Tokyo for a few days holiday.

Flights are easy to arrange and finding good quality accommodation at low prices just got a whole lot cheaper too. Cheaperthanhotels.com gives a choice of 60,000+ places to stay in different parts of the world and can save you as much as 70% on the price you would pay booking with the hotel itself.

There are a whole range places to stay, if you are looking for a cheap hotel in Hong Kong , the choice includes several 5 star choices and good but basic accommodation in somewhere like the YWCA hotel. The choice is entirely yours and the prices are there to see.

Cheap hotels in Tokyo are also available on the site. Choose an upmarket top of the range hotel like the Hilton Hotel, or opt for something a bit more economical. There are options for every pocket.

Getting insurance quotes can take a lot of your time. If you use the telephone you have to explain over and over what you want, hold the line for ages listening to electronic music and then listen to a sales person trying to sell you a different insurance from the one you want.

If you go to high street offices and try to buy insurance you have to park your car and then explain what you want to a sales person each time you go to a different insurance provider’s office.

It is so much easier to get a quote on line. Try Netquote.com. You can get multiple quotes which you can then compare. It’s simple to do this with Washington insurance All you have to do is to put your details into the online form once and press the button. You will be provided with a list of companies and prices which you can compare at your leisure and it all takes just a couple of minutes.