The life expectancy highs and lows for England And Wales (click to enlarge)
Statistics via The Office of National Statistics
Coming soon: The new UK Class map (Class is back and this time it’s angry)
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A water buffalo named William Shakespeare escaped from a field in Cumbria and ran into the path of cars on a nearby road on Tuesday, police reported. The buffalo was sadly killed in the accident and fire fighters had to cut a 19 year old driver from the wreck of his fiat punto that collided with the animal. The driver was taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries.
Two other drivers collided with each other as they attempted to swerve and avoid the accident on the A590 near Dalton-in-Furness. The driver and passenger of one vehicle was taken to hospital with whiplash injuries.
The buffalo was owned by a local man.
Random blog post___Blogs I Read
Boris Johnson finally launched his campaign to become the Conservative candidate for London Mayor and instantly got the iPod generation branding seen here. I’m not sure which facets of Boris each silhouette is meant to replace but the pink one on the right is clearly playing to his ‘lovable buffoon’ persona. So from left to right I see statesman Boris (yet to see more of that one), cycling Boris (he is a keen cyclist), shambolic Boris (the natural state?) and puzzled but lovable buffoon Boris. Of course branding alone will not stop the famous Boris foot-in-mouth tendencies but his campaign has got off to a colourful and good humoured start.The question is will London voters buy into the Boris brand?
Boris in pictures (The First Post)
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Speaking of weddings as I did a few posts ago, the government has released the most recent divorce statistics which shows divorce rates in England and Wales at a 29 year low . Mind you weddings actual are also at an all time low but that aside the divorce rate has fallen for the third year in a row. So let’s run down those top charting statistics, wedding watchers…(to the music of ‘At the sign of the swinging cymbal’ of course…not ‘arf)
Straight To the top – Twenty Somethings
The highest divorce rate was found amongst people in their late 20′s with a narcolepsy inducing statistic that this age group shows 26 divorces per thousand married men aged 25-29 and 27.3 per thousand women in the same age group.
In at 40 something
Overall though the average age for a divorce was 40.9 for women and 43.4 for men.
We’ve got 11.6 years
Meanwhile the number of second time divorces has doubled over the past 25 years and the average duration of a failed marriage stays steady (pop pickers) at 11.6 years. (Alright!)
Elsewhere…
Outside of England and Wales the figures don’t hold up too well as divorces in Scotland rose by 20% since 2005 and in Northern Ireland they rose 8.6%.
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Back in the mists of time I used have a foot in the Wedding photography and especially wedding video profession. I helped film and edit wedding videos for around 11 years from the acorns of its emergence with VHS and U-Matic filming (was that equipment big and cumbersome or what?) through to the liberating delights of the first handheld professional digital cameras.
When I left for Australia I cut my connections with weddings and the like and now find myself eager to film a wedding or civil partnership even if at cost in order to keep my techniques up to date and because I really fancy getting involved in that side of things again. I don’t know anybody in my small circle getting married or partnered so if you live live within easy reach of London, Beds, Herts ,Bucks or the M25 in the UK and you’d like a complimentary wedding ,civil partnership or dedication video by somebody with a lot of professional experience (ie: me) then please get in touch with me as I’d love to do a few just to keep my hand in.
I last filmed a wedding a few years ago and was surprised how much I still enjoyed the whole experience and that I could still surprise myself as to how unobtrusive I often could be and how I could ‘tune in’ to the event and be free to pick up the little nuances that many guests might not be looking out for. Of course I have many a tale to tell about past weddings I’ve filmed and happy memories too. I Would love to record some new memories in the making for someone soon.
I should think that the present Major of London, Ken Livingstone must be laughing himself to sleep at night as opposition parties struggle to find potential opposition candidates with enough popular support to mount a serious challenge to Ken Livingstone’s position as Mayor of London.
It’s August so it must be the silly season
And now the rumour mill coincides with the journalistic silly season. For a brief moment the Lib Dems Lembit ‘cheeky cheeky’ Opik’s name was bandied around as a potential candidate. If it were not for the fact that Mr Opik has ruled out his interest in the post, not least because he is a serving member of parliment for a Welsh contituency 205 miles from London itself and that the press would have had a field day via his relationship with a Cheeky girl.
Get Serious?
A Ken Livingstone vs. Boris Johnson vs. Lembit Opik vs. Nick Ferrari Mayoral race would have more comedic potential than an episode of The New Statesman. Now if only Alan B’stard could be persuaded to stand then it would officially be the farce it seems in danger of becoming.
Boris says OK to Mayor attempt
Boris Johnson has thrown his hat into the ring and announced himself willing to stand as a candidate for London Mayor against Ken Livingstone, the current Mayor who originally stood as an independent and is now back as a Labour party member.
Eccentric
Boris is a well known eccentric personality who juggles his work as an opposition MP for the conservative party with various business interests and was editor of The Spectator magazine until 2005 when Conservative party leader David Cameron made him shadow minister for higher eduction.
Gaffe Central
He is a well known face on television and equally well known for putting his foot in it most famously enraging the people of Liverpool through comments in The Spectator magazine for which he was made to publically apologise (I wonder how long before he launches yet another verbal gaff over the residents of London).
Mayor Ken -Born again Labour candidate
The main political parties have struggled to find any kind of opposition to Mayor Ken, the former ‘Red Ken” far left member of the Labour party who stood as an independent for London Mayor when Tony Blair felt him unsuitable for backing as an official Labour Mayor candidate however in a move of political expediency Ken was welcomed back into the Labour fold when it was realised that no alternative candidate with enough popular support could be raised by Labour.
One of many?
Mr Johnson could be one of a number of potential Tory candidates for Mayor and it remains to be seen if Londoners will take this bumbling eccentric to their hearts enough to elect him proper.
