James Barlow

Normal service will resume shortly.

In association with Harvey Nicks:

Via Avon & Somerset Constabulary:

Police are appealing for witnesses after the theft of a horse drawn carriage in Templecombe near Wincanton.
The carriage was stolen sometime between Sunday 19th July and Sunday 2nd August 2009 from a field in Shaftesbury Road, Henstridge, Tenplecombe. […]

The carriage is very distinctive and has a black metal chassis with black shaft, black rubber tyres, silver spoked wheels and a cherry red wooden frame.

It has no seat and a bucket carriage. The owners are keen to recover the carriage as it is handmade and unique.

(Alright, so Dick Turpin stole the possessions of the passengers, not the coaches, but I’m sure one of the many English Highwaymen must have made the intellectual leap from robbery to grand theft equine)

Related Links

• Original version: Adam & the Ants: Stand and Deliver 

[Update: The Army have decided it wasn’t suspicious after all.]

Via BBC Bristol:

An Avon and Somerset Police spokesman said an Army explosives team was called to examine the package which was "deemed to be safe and non suspicious".

[Original Post]

Via Avon & Somerset Constabulary:

Motorists are being advised to find alternative routes home after the discovery of a suspicious package on the A38 at Filton.

The package was discovered in Gypsy Patch Lane, Patchway, Bristol at around 3.46pm.

An army explosives team has been called in as a precaution and a number of buildings in the area have been evacuated.

The Highways Agency is currently managing traffic in the area.
Gloucester Road North is closed from the junction of Gypsy Patch Lane to Station Road.

Diversions are in place.

Although obviously both are a pleasant enough means to fritter away a bit of one’s free time.

Via Twitter Status Blog:

We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly.

Update: the site is back up, but we are continuing to defend against and recover from this attack.

Via Wired:

Twitter was shut down for hours Thursday morning by what it described as an “ongoing” denial-of-service attack, silencing millions of Tweeters. It’s the first major outage the service has suffered in months and possibly the first ever due to sabotage. The outage appeared to begin mid-morning, EST, and affected users around the world.

Via The Register:

Twitter was knocked offline on Thursday after the site became the victim of a denial of service attack.

Users of the micro-blogging service are used to seeing the fail whale, a graphic that appears when service is over capacity, but this time around the site was left completely unreachable from around 1500 on Thursday (UK time).

Via Euronews:

Devotees at a shrine in Harangal village of Parbhani in western India's Maharashtra observe a bizarre ritual of throwing their babies for good health from a considerable height onto a cloth sheet held below.