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In this blogposting…
* AGM XXXVII
* New From Nowhere
* Australia
* Stress Test
Do it while you still can...


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AGM XXXVII
Our next AGM will take place at 1100 on Saturday 27 October at Bede’s World in Jarrow.  It’s an amazing place - lots to see and much to do.  If you’re ashamed of never having been, now’s the time to feel better about yourself by going.

After all, the Venerable Bede lived there almost all his life and if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for us.

Amongst many other things, it was his idea to number the years the way we do - although, judging from the story in the last blogposting, he could have thought the whole thing through better and decided when each year should actually start.

See you on the 27th, if not before!

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NEWS FROM NOWHERE
It’s time we caught up with the real news, as we used to do on The Nightshift….

* A German man has been reunited with his car almost two years after he forgot where he’d parked it.  After a particularly heavy night’s drinking in December 2010 - and an unsuccessful search the next day - he reported his car as missing to Munich police.  Authorities discovered it by chance last month after a traffic warden noticed that its inspection tickets had expired.  It was 4km from the spot where the man - now 33 - thought he’d parked it…

* A Dallas woman has been jailed for 99 years for beating her daughter and glueing her hands to a wall.  Elizabeth Escalona attacked her daughter Jocelyn because she was having trouble potty-training her.  Jocelyn suffered bleeding in the brain, multiple bruises and was in a coma for two days…

* A 15-year old girl in Timbuktu. Mali, has received 60 lashes after Islamist extremists convicted her of talking to some men in the street…

* A pilot has been suspended from flying after landing an Indonesian jet at the wrong airport.  The aircraft, carrying 96 passengers and six crew, was meant to land at Minangkabau airport in Padang but instead descended to the Tabing airport six miles away…

And a crop of the results of some recent research…

* People prone to feeling guilty make good best friends...

* Mice can learn songs...

* The Duchess of Cambridge grows her own potatoes...

* Women get more stressed than men when they read bad news stories...

* Plants grow better if you talk to them in a north-east England accent...

* Dogs work better when they've had their breakfast...

* Men named Brian and women called Helen have the best credit profiles in the UK on average...
* 
Chinese soft-shelled turtles pass waste through their mouths...
* Men with high testosterone levels lie less...

* Bull sharks have the strongest bite of any sharks...
 
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THE WORLD:  A TRUCKSHUNTER GEOGRAPHY
The next port of call in our armchair tour of the world is Australia. 

I’ve already received some useful contributions from blogsters in the country itself, including the winner of a vote to find ‘Australia’s greatest gift to the world’.  And you’ll never guess what it is…

If you have any wayward and offbeat trivia about Australia lurking somewhere, don’t keep them to yourself.  Email them to me…

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STRESS TEST
The picture above has been used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary's Hospital, London.

It shows two dolphins leaping out of the water.  They are identical.

The hospital case-study revealed, however, that people under stress can see differences between the two dolphins.

Furthermore, the more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing.

Look at the photograph again and if you find more than one or two minor differences you need a holiday.

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com

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