UK : Lard shortage threatens traditional Xmas food! This is a real news report. The story has in fact turned up in some form on every news source in the UK since the weekend - predictably the more rabid conservative newspapers are blaming all of this on those "new EU countries".
Should this "real and present danger" to Middle England's Christmas cuisine get any worse, a certain Boris Johnson would be well advised to stay clear of any butchers, rendering plants or similar places, at least not without appropriate security protection.
The Tories have already shown their great lack of unity and tolerance in stitching him up at the weekend; and I reckon they'd get a fair few kilos (sorry, pounds and ounces ;) ) out of him - enough for a few Xmas puddings.
Quote:
Lard crisis: mince pies threatened as supplies dwindle
Supermarkets fear panic buying in the run-up to Christmas
Helen Carter
Tuesday November 16, 2004
The Guardian
Lard fans regard it as a gastronomic delicacy which makes cakes, pastry and roast potatoes taste fantastic. But others, notably vegetarians, think it is a disgusting animal fat.
It was immortalised as a comedy prop when the former deputy leader of the Labour party Roy Hattersley failed to turn up for a scheduled appearance on BBC TV's Have I Got News for You. He was replaced by a large tub of lard.
But there is now a national shortage of lard and supermarket shelves are emptying. Notices have begun to appear apologising for the European lard shortage.
There are fears of panic buying in the run-up to Christmas when it is traditionally an ingredient in mince pies and Christmas puddings.
Demand in east European countries for cheap cuts of pork has led to a shortage of meat suitable for rendering into lard. New members of the European Union, including Hungary and Poland, are buying within the union to avoid a levy on non-EU imports.
Supermarkets such as Morrisons have been forced to display signs on shelves apologising for the lack of lard. Somerfield said it had already been forced to limit the number of tubs of lard on sale at each of its stores. It is advising customers to check their local stores to see if another delivery has arrived.
A statement from Morrisons said: "There is a general shortage of lard, but we are still getting supplies. Customer information notices have been made available to all our stores which inform our customers of the general shortage."
Notices have also been spotted in Sainsbury's supermarkets. One in a Cardiff branch read: "Due to the European lard shortage, we are currently unable to supply this product."
Margarine and cooking oil have been put forward as potential substitutes.
Paul Heathcote, the restaurateur who owns the Simply Heathcotes and Olive Press chain, said lard had become more popular due to the resurgence of old-fashioned British cooking.
"For the first time in a long time, British cooking is being taken seriously and is appearing on menus in gastropubs and in restaurants. In recent years, vegetable shortening has been something which has taken over from lard because of the rise in the number of vegetarians.
"Lard makes chips and Yorkshire puddings taste absolutely fantastic - they taste entirely different with lard."
He said his business was considering reintroducing fish and chips cooked with lard on to its menus as it had found a fryer which continually filters the cooking fat.
"I didn't realise there was a shortage of lard," he added. "I just thought it was related to people's changing tastes."
But he said there were problems with using lard because of the large percentage of non-meat eaters. It is also non-Kosher and so not suitable for Jewish clients.
"You can't beat lard for roast potatoes with a Sunday roast," he added. "It gives a really meaty taste and can be mixed with a little bit of oil to help keep the temperature right."
But for lard fans, there is always the lard cam - which shows a fridge crammed with lard. It has been set up by the British Lard Marketing Board, a jokey site which promotes the use of the animal fat beneath the slogan: "Not suitable for weirdy vegetarians."
Richest of fats
· Lard is made from hog fat and is richer than other fats.
· It is popularly used in flaky biscuits and pastries.
· Lard has fewer calories than butter: one tablespoon contains 13 grams of fat, 116 calories and 12 milligrams of cholesterol.
· Lardo di Colonnata, a heavily seasoned version of lard, is a delicacy in the Apuane mountains in Italy.
· Chocolard (from the British Lard Marketing Board website). Melt a block of lard in a pan. Stir in two dessert spoons full of cocoa and two tablespoons of sugar (white, refined). Pour into a mould. When nearly set, add a fancy pattern and when set wrap in tinfoil.
· A block of lard makes an excellent skating rink for insects
Positive housing venture from 1985 still going! http://www.groundswell.org.uk/network/features/giroscope.html
Quote:
Giroscope
diy working in hull
Giroscope Workers Co-operative began in May 1985 when a group of young people decided to do something positive about their housing situation. At the time, house prices in Hull were very low and homelessness was on the up. By persuading friends with jobs to take out mortgages and by borrowing money from wherever we could, we managed to buy four houses which we did our best to renovate.
In August 1986 we formed ourselves into a legal company. We chose to be a Workers Co-operative and registered with Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM). We were able to take advantage of assistance from Humberside Co-operative Development Agency (CDA) who advised us on the various legal structures and also basic business practices. We decided to incorporate into our rules a strict pay limit and consensus decision making.
We have managed over the years to raise considerable money from charities and trusts. We have also raised money and received gifts in kind from many companies. We have had grants from English Partnerships, the European Regional Development Fund and the National Lottery. Several years after the formation of Giroscope we changed our structure slightly to an organisation with charitable aims. This means that we are a workers co-operative and a limited company with charitable aims.
We provide a range of accommodation to rent, ranging from one bedroom flats to five bedroom houses. Our prospective tenants come to us by either word of mouth or through various agencies in the city established to help people in housing need. Some of our tenants use us as a short term housing solution whilst others stay with us for many years. Most of our tenants claim Housing Benefit which comes directly to the organisation. We do not charge deposits except in exceptional circumstances. Should any of our tenants find work then we agree with them a reasonable rent based on what is fair and what they can afford.'
now...
At the moment, Giroscope is composed of twenty houses, five flats and a shop (excluding our workshops and office space) all based in west Hull. All but three of our houses are fully occupied with tenants. Two of these houses which have only recently become vacant are being advertised and will be filled in the near future. The remaining vacant property is currently being renovated. This work is near completion and the prospective tenants are ready to move in. We are looking to buy another property in the area, which we can renovate to a high standard and rent out to people who are generally disadvantaged in the housing market. We undertake renovation work using environmentally friendly products and incorporate energy efficiency into our properties wherever possible. For example, two of our houses have solar panels which help to provide hot water and our workshops have them to create electricity.
what next?
The central process of buying derelict and semi-derelict houses and flats, renovating them and renting the properties out to people who are in housing need will continue at Giroscope. However, we are always looking to improve our organisation and develop new initiatives that will increase our cost effectiveness and improve our service delivery. These include the introduction of a more pro-active maintenance system. This would involve an annual survey of every Giroscope property to discover what work is required and what problems may occur in the future. With plans to expand our workforce there is the possibility of carrying out more outside contract work. We should not underestimate some of our specialist administrative knowledge and skills. At present we share our knowledge for free but there may be circumstances when we could charge for help given to other organisations in the future.'
John Wood, Giroscope
July 2001
RU : Local council impose controls and censorship on dance music events! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3987123.stm
The local soviet (I use the word quite deliberately, as this seems to be their mentality!) here has previously banned swearing in the street; those caught are instantly fined by cops
I can see a blind man with a black labrador quickly booking the next Aeroflot flight to Moscow to "exchange examples of good practice"
Quote:
Russian city bans 'immoral' DJs
By Steve Rosenberg
BBC Moscow correspondent
Western-style discos have become popular in post-Soviet Russia
Officials in a south Russian city are to impose restrictions on discos and attempt to "educate" DJs in an effort to improve public morality.
The new decree in Belgorod, 700km (400 miles) from Moscow, limits the kind of music which can be played as well as the kind of DJs permitted to play it.
Most Russians view discos simply as innocent fun.
But officials in Belgorod consider them to be a potential danger to society, hotbeds of drugs, drink and debauchery.
Now the regional governor has ordered DJs to face the music and clean up their acts.
He has imposed heavy restrictions on local discos or, as they are described in the decree, "mass cultural youth events".
From now on, only music which is considered to be of a moral nature can be played.
Measured steps
Recommended works include folk music, Russian and western classics.
Disc jockeys must have completed secondary education and they must know Russia's law on culture.
Special courses will be organised to help DJs improve their qualifications.
As for the audience, from now on anyone boogieing in Belgorod would be well advised to take along a tape measure and a watch.
According to the decree, there can be no more than two people dancing on one square metre and the music has to stop at 10pm.
It all smacks of Soviet-era control. Under communism, censors usually decided which songs could be played and which were too ideologically unsound.
This is not the first time that officials in Belgorod have tried to raise the moral standing of society.
Early this year they launched a campaign to stop people swearing and encouraged police to fine anyone heard using "four-letter" words.
"let’s start a war" said Tony today why is it when I read headlines like this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3981307.stm
US attack on Iran 'inconceivable'
that I feel sure we (US/UK) will start a war with Iran in the near future:(
US : NY : NY authorities attempt to stop critical mass with legal challenge Looks like in the land of the free you can be nicked just if a bunch of you decide to ride your bicycles in the city all in one group...
OK a critical mass is a sort of mixed action partly to encourage riding of bicycles but also to highlight other issues (as you would expect the war is a big one at present)
but no other country in the world AFAIK has gone that far to attempt to stop one...
http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/128206/index.php
‘grey collar’ crime I thought this was about all the news I could handle on a monday
Pensioners' shoplift scam foiled
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/3951637.stm
Two pensioners who ran a shoplifting ring from a Conservative club have been cautioned by police.
Rose Fitzsimmons, 70, and Jeanie Duckworth, 66, were caught with a haul including two stolen boxes of sweets.
Police in St Annes, Lancashire, arrested and cautioned the women for receiving stolen goods.
The women have been barred from St Annes Conservative Club for bringing it into disrepute. A 37-year-old man has been charged with shoplifting.
Police were called to the resort's branch of Woolworths where a man had been arrested on suspicion of shoplifting.
'Stolen sweets'
Believing the suspect was working to order they followed a trail which led them to the St Annes Conservative Club.
Inside the two women were found with large boxes of sweets and a bag of assorted meat.
The club's management committee said it had to withdraw the women's memberships.
"We can't have that sort of thing happening here, we are a Conservative Club and it brings us into disrepute," said secretary and treasurer June Wood.
The man accused of shoplifting will appear at Blackpool Magistrates' Court on 3 November.
Flash mob goes pear shaped? arrests made :( Probably more likely a panicked passenger set the fire alarm off than the invaders, but doesn't surprise me this happened..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3748834.stm
One arrest as station 'invaded'
One man was arrested for possession of a bladed instrument
A man has been arrested after crowds of people ran into one of London's busiest stations.
Up to 150 people, calling themselves the "Space Invaders", rushed into Victoria Tube and mainline station in central London on Friday night.
"They were running around in the London Underground, the main station and the surrounding area," a British Transport Police spokesman said.
The station had to be closed for half an hour after fire alarms were set off.
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said one man was arrested for possession of a bladed instrument and was being held in custody at a central London police station.
The station was shut for half an hour at 2100 BST while the alarms were checked, a Network Rail spokeswoman said.
Another fire alarm was set off at 2225 BST, but the station was not evacuated as it was deemed to be a "malicious setting off".
After the first fire alarm was set off, the station was closed and scores of people had to gather outside in the rain.
The crowds eventually dispersed at about 2330BST, a police spokesman said.
More mixed messages from the Grauniad The following headlines were next to each other todays on-line news... OK the lad did do the crime (and deserves a fairly long stretch for ripping off individuals) but you would have thought they would have separated the two headlines before publishing the site :)
Quote:
Media casts youth in a constant bad light
Campaign seeks to adjust emphasis on crime.
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Boy, 16, in £46,000 eBay con
Victims taunted as youngster's lifestyle grew ever more opulent.
More from the Online team
Indymedia press release
* News from Indymedia *
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 11, 2004
Indymedia to U.S., U.K., Swiss and Italian Authorities: "Hands Off Our
Websites"
Evidence is beginning to mount that the authorities of at least four
countries (Switzerland, Italy, U.K. and U.S.A.) are involved in last
week's seizure of two of Indymedia's servers that brought down more than
20 of the Indymedia network's web sites and several internet radio
streams. Indymedia has yet to receive any official statement or
information about what the order entailed or why it was issued.
An FBI spokesperson, Joe Parris, confirmed to Agence France-Presse that
the FBI issued a subpoena to the provider who hosted the Indymedia
servers in the U.K., but that it was "on behalf of a third country." (1)
Daniel Zapelli, senior federal prosecutor for Geneva (Switzerland),
confirmed that he has opened a criminal investigation into Indymedia
coverage of the 2003 G8 Summit in Evian. (2) Zapelli will provide
details of that investigation at a press conference on Tuesday.
Federal prosecutor of Bologna (Italy) Marina Plazzi has also stated that
she is investigating Italy Indymedia because it may "support terrorism."
(3) Plazzi says she will provide more information on Thursday, October
14th.
Meanwhile, international journalist associations have come forward in
support of Indymedia. "We have witnessed an intolerable and intrusive
international police operation against a network specialising in
independent journalism," said Aidan White, General Secretary for the
International Federation of Journalists. (4)
Indymedia is consulting with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on
how to retrieve its servers and prevent further government attacks on
free speech. "EFF is deeply concerned about the grave implications of
this seizure for free speech and privacy, and we are exploring all
avenues to hold the government accountable for this improper and
unconstitutional silencing of independent media.," said EFF Staff
Attorney Kurt Opsahl. (5)
As of Monday, October 11, five of the downed websites have been
restored, including Brasil, Euskal Herria, Poland, UK and Nice.
Indymedia volunteers are working around the clock to restore the
remaining sites, however at least four of them - Uruguay, Italy, Western
Massachusetts and Nantes - have suffered data loss as a result of the
governments' action.
"This FBI operation gives us even more reason to continue with what we
have been doing for several years," says an activist from Italy
Indymedia.
"Uruguay has a long history of media repression. We don't have the money
to pay for web hosting, and so we rely on the solidarity of other
countries. Actions like the seizure of the servers make the whole world
insecure for free media," says Libertinus, an Indymedia volunteer from
Uruguay, one of many Indymedia web sites that was caught in the FBI
actions as a bystander. "Uruguay's national elections will take place on
October 31st. It's a bad time for this to happen."
For more information, visit www.indymedia.org/en/static/fbi, email
press@indymedia.org, or call:
Tomasso at +39 3383903806 (Italy)
Hep Sano at +1-415-867-9472 (San Francisco)
David Meieran at +1-412-996-4986 (Pittsburgh)
* Notes to the editor *
(1) On October 7, 2004, Rackspace, a web hosting provider based in San
Antonio (USA), turned over two servers at its London officer after it
was issued a court order under the Mutual Legal Assistence Treaty.
Rackspace officials claim that the order prevents them from divulging
the reasons for the seizure and to whom the servers were actually given.
They stated, "Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen and is
cooperating with international law enforcement authorities." See more
details on www.indymedia.org/fbi and on the press releases from 8 and 9
October: http://www.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/111999.shtml and
http://www.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/112047.shtml
(2) For more examples see: http://www.indymedia.org/en/static/fbi.shtml
(3) AFP report:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1509&ncid=738&e=6&u=/
afp/20041008/tc_afp/us_internet_justice
(4) International Federation of Jounalists:
http://www.ifj.org/default.asp?Index=2734&Language=EN
(5) Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): http://eff.org/
===
Angry Middle England commuters send London down the tubes… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3591928.stm
here are the official statistics from British Transport Police for crimes on the "Tube" (London Underground "metro" system)
Quote:
Difference in crime figures compared to 2002/03
All crime +1%
Violent crime +22.1%
Sexual offences +5%
Robbery -6.2%
Theft of railway property +62.9%
Criminal damage +63.1%
Line of route offences +58.5%
Passenger property theft -13.1%
Motor vehicle offences -17.9%
Fraud offences -9.6%
Drugs +5.1%
Other crimes +12.6%
Look carefully at the figures - robbery (muggings) are down.
This isn't surprising; CCTV is closely watched in London since 9/11; the TfL security staff and transport cops have been able to identify, arrest and bring many muggers before Court; furthermore these "steaming" type robberies are linked with London gang culture where scum often don't disguise themselves as they consider themselves "above the law". They are an easy catch when cameras are on every station, in trains and on street corners. A lot of these scum are now in prison - where they belong.
So why the rise in violence?
Quote:
Growing attacks on Tube staff have seen violent crimes on London Underground rise by almost a quarter, figures from British Transport Police (BTP) show.
The statistics show attacks on workers accounted for almost one third of all assaults in the 12 months leading to the end of March 2004.
(some bits snipped)
RMT General Secretary Bob Crowe said: "Our members all too often bear the brunt of aggressive, drunken behaviour, particularly at night and when working alone or receive unacceptable abuse and threats from commuters frustrated by late-running trains.
once again its the angry middle england suburban types who claim to be "law abiding decent citizens" kicking off and making the world a more hostile place...
Stealing a nation! I wish I hadn't missed this :(
----
Stealing a nation!
By Arun Kundnani
29 September 2004, 5:00pm
A new documentary by John Pilger, to be screened next Wednesday, reveals how in the 1960s Britain secretly and brutally expelled the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean - so that the US could build a military base there.
The largest of the islands, Diego Garcia, is now America's biggest overseas military base and was a launchpad for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. With more than 4,000 troops, two bomber runways, thirty warships and a satellite spy station, the Pentagon calls it an 'indispensable platform' for policing the world. Located halfway between Africa and Indonesia, Diego Garcia is also home to a secret camp for suspected terrorists, part of a global network of prison complexes which includes Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
Before the Americans came, more than 2,000 people lived on the islands which were, and still are, a British crown colony. But in the 1960s, the Labour government struck a secret deal with the United States to hand over Diego Garcia. The Americans demanded that the islands be 'swept' and 'sanitised'. Unknown to Parliament and to the US Congress, the British government plotted with Washington to expel the entire population - in secrecy and in breach of the United Nations Charter.
At first, they starved them of essential supplies; then rumours spread that the islands would be bombed; then the people watched their pets gassed to death before they were herded on to boats and dumped in the slums of Mauritius.
Now the Chagos Islanders, who are British subjects, are fighting for the right to return to the islands and compensation for their unlawful exile which began more than 30 years ago. Last year, thirty people from Diego Garcia camped out at Gatwick Airport in protest at their treatment by the British authorities.
Cover up
In next week's documentary, John Pilger and producer Christopher Martin reveal hundreds of astonishing official documents which shed light on how the expulsion of the Islanders was first planned and then covered up. 'The documents show clearly that the conspiracy to expel the population rested on a big lie', says John Pilger. 'This claimed that the population were itinerant workers, when the government knew this was a population that went back generations. Most had never left the islands.'
The attitude of racial superiority with which the Foreign Office regarded the Islanders was illustrated by the comment of one senior official who described them, in a letter, as 'mere Tarzans and Men Fridays'. That another potential site for a US military base in the Indian Ocean - the uninhabited island of Aldabra Atoll - was rejected because it was home to a rare breed of turtle further indicates how little value was placed on the welfare of the Islands' populations.
Foreign Office documents of the time, now made public under the thirty-year rule, suggest that the government sought to mislead the public to avoid criticism. One document is revealingly headed, 'Maintaining the fiction'. Another says, 'We propose to certify these people, more or less fraudulently, as belonging somewhere else.'
Commenting on these documents, John Pilger says: 'We have secret memos that propose how the government should lie to the world. I have never read anything like them.'
Rita, a Chagossian who is now in her 70s, lost her husband and three of her children following their deportation from the Chagos Islands. In the documentary, she says: 'I am a British citizen and they threw us out of our homeland in the name of the Queen.'
Charlesia, another exile from the Chagos Islands, says: 'What hurts most is that we were never told what they were doing with our islands. If it had been built for poor people to work, fine. But it's a base for bombers - and the bombs that fell on Iraq came from our paradise.'
Stealing a Nation, a special report by John Pilger, will be shown on ITV1, Wednesday 6 October, 11pm to midnight.
http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/september/ak000014.html
No evidence of al-Qaida-Iraq link! Rumsfeld: No evidence of al-Qaida-Iraq link!
In 2002, he said intelligence was ‘very reliable’
Reuters
Updated: 7:43 p.m. ET Oct. 4, 2004
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday that he knew of no “strong, hard evidence” linking Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al-Qaida, despite describing extensive contacts between the two before the invasion of Iraq.
During a question-and-answer session before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Rumsfeld was asked to explain the connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, which is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
“I have seen the answer to that question migrate in the intelligence community over a period of a year in the most amazing way. Second, there are differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was,” Rumsfeld said. “To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.
“I just read an intelligence report recently about one person who’s connected to al-Qaida who was in and out of Iraq. And it is the most tortured description of why he might have had a relationship and why he might not have had a relationship. It may have been something that was not representative of a hard linkage.”
U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 and toppled Saddam and his government in a war whose main justification offered by the United States was the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been discovered.
But the relationship between Saddam’s government and al-Qaida also figured in the U.S. case for war.
‘Credible information’
A small Defense Department intelligence-analysis office found what it considered evidence of Iraq-al-Qaida ties. Rumsfeld was one of the Bush administration officials publicly describing this link. On Sept. 26, 2002, Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon of evidence of contacts and cooperation.
“We have what we consider to be very reliable reporting of senior-level contacts going back a decade, and of possible chemical and biological agent training. And when I say ‘contacts,’ I mean between Iraq and al-Qaida,” Rumsfeld said at the time.
“We have what we believe to be credible information that Iraq and al-Qaida have discussed safe-haven opportunities in Iraq, reciprocal non-aggression discussions. We have what we consider to be credible evidence that al-Qaida leaders have sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire ... weapons of mass destruction capabilities,” Rumsfeld added at the time.
The bipartisan commission that studied the 2001 attacks concluded in July that there was no evidence of a “collaborative operational relationship” between Iraq and al-Qaida or an Iraqi role in attacking the United States.
Rumsfeld was also asked Monday what was the “No. 1 reason for the war.”
Rumsfeld said President Bush made the judgment that Saddam “ran a vicious regime that had used weapons of mass destruction on its own people, as well as its neighbors, and that it was important to set that right by removing that regime before they, in fact, did gather weapons of mass destruction, either themselves or transferring them to terrorist networks.”
Before the war, U.S. officials spoke of Iraq’s already possessing weapons of mass destruction, not a potential for gathering them.
“It turns out that we have not found weapons of mass destruction,” Rumsfeld said.
“And why the intelligence proved wrong, I’m not in a position to say. I simply don’t know. But the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail than they were with him in power,” Rumsfeld added.
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6180176/
Wales: anti-squatter paranoia leads to legal home being boarded up! The housing department are a bunch of ffŵls to do this - and only because they leave homes empty for ages and get paranoid of squatters..,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3705530.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 30 September, 2004, 20:07 GMT 21:07 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Woman finds her home boarded up
The council mixed up Patricia Driscoll's home for a nearby flat
A woman returned from a weekend break away to find the council had boarded up her house.
Patricia Driscoll was told the shutters had gone up on her three-bedroom Cardiff council home because officials thought she had abandoned it.
She had to spend the night with a friend after the authority mistook her home for a flat on the same estate.
The council has apologised and replaced the back door which was damaged in the work - and sent Miss Driscoll flowers.
Care assistant Miss Driscoll, 39, lives on the Brynfedw estate in Llanedeyrn with her 13-year-old daughter, Amber.
They are not really sure how the number got twisted up, but the fact that it was a flat and I live in a house is a dead giveaway, isn't it!
Her 19-year-old son, James, was house sitting for her while she was away for the weekend in Blackpool and Amber was at her grandmother's.
She said James had been at the property until 1230 BST on the weekday that she returned home, from the railway station some four hours later.
"As we drove up, I could see that there were shutters on my window frames.
"The first thing I did then was that I panicked and looked for black smoke marks on the house, but there weren't any. Then I thought the house had been smashed in."
'Fire hazard'
She said the council's contractors had just finished the shutter work and were in the garden packing up to leave.
"They said 'we have been ordered to do this because you had abandoned the property'. I said 'I've been away for the weekend!'
"They said I couldn't stay in it because it was a fire hazard while the shutters were on.
"So I had to stay at a friend's overnight and wait till the morning to go to the council to find out what was going on."
She said it turned out the message from the estate's caretaker about an empty flat on the other side of the estate had been misunderstood.
The caretaker reported the one-bedroom flat, no 215, but the numbers were somehow rearranged to Miss Driscoll's house number.
"They said 'the caretaker reported your flat empty'. I said 'hold on - flat? I live in a house'."
'Sincere apologies
"They are not really sure how the number got twisted up, but the fact that it was a flat and I live in a house is a dead giveaway, isn't it!
"The thing is, I had just cut the grass last week. There was fresh food in the fridge.
"When it first happened, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but I'm laughing about it now.
A spokesman said: "Cardiff Council extends its sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to Ms Driscoll.
'Acted properly'
"The authority owns and manages 14,000 homes around the city.
"Whenever a property falls vacant we fit it with security screens, if appropriate.
"Local housing officers were wrongly informed by colleagues that Ms Driscoll's home had been abandoned.
"They acted properly in arranging for it to be screened.
"When Ms Driscoll drew the error to their attention, they ensured that the screens were quickly removed."
what kind of freedom are you fighting for? make sure you don't own a peashooter
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/16/151233
in a country (the land of the free) where it is now legal for ant federally funded body (educational, social service, police, etc) to discriminate against its' employees based on gender, ethnicity orreligious practice.
way to go America. Civil Rights? don't need 'em:(
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