Other Things have been Happening...

Well, although the Jubilation isn't quite finished (there is for example, the local Jubilee do on the Aquarius Golf Course with Steve Boltz still to come today), and bedraggled bunting can still be spotted around and about, we at TANH would like to remind our reader about the other stuff that has been going on while our Overlords have been celebrating their rule. 

This is just a random selection, in no particular order.

Dragon Lands The SpaceX Dragon landed successfully in the Pacific Ocean on May 31.  This was the first commercial spacecraft to dock successfully with the ISS.  The second stage of the rocket contained some of the ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star trek, as well as (Keroy) Gordon Cooper, one of the secen original astromauts in the Mercury space program.  Gordon Tracy, the pilot of Thunderbird 4, was named after the latter.

Jeremy Hunt at Leveson The Leveson inquiry has shown that Jeremy Hunt was very, very much in favour of  the Newscorp bid to take over BSkyB.  The Prime Minister knew this when he appointed him to decide upon whether the bid should proceed.  Given that Vince Cable was removed from this role because of his bias (in the opposite direction), how was this a sound decision by the Cameron?  Can we assume that Cameron wanted the takeover to go ahead as well, so was unworried by Hunt's lack of neutrality, or was it just incompetence?  Hunt has said he thought the bid would have been good for British media, but (as far as I can tell) has failed in any way to say how.

The Awful Baroness Warsi has seemingly been breaking a few rules, with the (non)disclosure of some of her own financial arrangements.

Bankia in Trouble Spain's banks look as though they are in trouble, with Bankia, the fourth largest bank in Spain, asking for a 19bn Euro bailout, and the Eurozone crisis is lurching into new problems.

The Annan Plan in Syria seems to be failing, with escalating violence, while armed militia stormed Tripoli airport yesterday.

HIGNIFY Resurgent For a few series now, Have I Got News For You has been a little moribund. But just recently it seems to have perked up again. Firstly with an appearance bu Ken Livingstone, who Hislop agreed was a less interesting guest on the show than Boris Johnson, but would have been a better Mayor of London. And then last week we had Alastair Campbell as chair. Which turned into a straight battle between Campbell and, well everyone else. A real bruiser and very, very funny. Watch it again on i-Player before it goes. It also includes the largest margin win I've seen so far.

And Finally... Don't forget the Transit of Venus - just visible tomorrow in the early morning...