Lab test
Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter described black labradors, pubs and warm ale as a ‘far right fantasy’. Do labradors have right-wing roots? The labrador, as its name suggests, had its origins in Newfoundland. The breed was derived from the St John’s water dog, favoured by Portuguese fishermen for its strong fishing ability. Dogs of this breed were brought to Britain by the 10th Earl of Home to be trained as gun dogs. They were cross-bred with other hunting dogs, and the labrador was recognised as a distinct breed by the Kennel Club in 1903. Some were employed in the fight against fascism through bomb-detection duties in the war (although they would no doubt as happily have worked for the other side). In modern times, the labrador has spanned the political divide, with owners including Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Vladimir Putin.
Pop goes the diesel
How reliant are we on diesel?
– 9.8m cars (28% of the total) run on diesel.
– 4.64m out of 4.96m light commercial vehicles are diesel powered.
– As are 532,000 out of 534,000 heavy goods vehicles.
– 19% of Britain’s 15,348 trains are solely diesel-powered while another 8% are ‘bimode’, meaning they can run on electricity as well.
– 108,500 out of 118,000 buses run
on diesel.
– Diesel generators (working in short bursts) produced 4,700 MWh out of a
total of 592,000 MWh of electricity in Britain last year.
Poor execution
Christa Pike was to have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in a century, except that on 30 September she survived two attempts to kill her by lethal injection. How many other condemned criminals have survived their executions?
– In the US there are at least nine recorded survivals, the most common reason being the inability of the executioner to find a vein to administer a lethal injection.
– However, William Purvis survived an attempt to hang him in Mississippi in 1894. His conviction was later overturned when another man confessed to the crime.
– Willie Francis, aged 17, survived the electric chair in Louisiana in 1946. He was executed the following year
– In Britain, ‘the man they couldn’t hang’ was John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee who survived three attempted executions in Exeter jail in 1907. His sentence was commuted to life, and he was freed after 22 years.
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