UK blanketed under record snowfall – but don’t just take our word for it

by Scott Carmichael on

The UK has been hit by one of the worst winter storms in decades. But don’t just take our word for it – check out this photo from The Nasa Terra satellite. Similar winter storms hit all over Europe, but this photo of an entirely white country looks unbelievable. For an even more impressive shot – click here to view a version of the photo taken from 250 miles.

Parts of the country will be getting another 10 inches of the white stuff, and grocery stores are starting to run out of essential products. The national energy operator has even warned of brief periods of natural gas shortages.

Of course, the storms have also been wreaking havoc on the various airports. Gatwick airport canceled over 400 flights on Thursday, and travelers stranded there described the place as the “airport from hell”.

Are you stuck in the UK? Flown through one of its airports? Let us know how you did in the comments below, or tweet including @Gadling.

Winter weather doesn’t deter amorous Brits

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Next time you’re stuck in a London hotel, with snow falling and few options for getting out on the town, order a little entertainment to your room. It will make you authentically British … if you take the latest survey by IllicitEncounter.com at face value. The website, which helps married people find a little action on the side, revealed that its traffic increased on Wednesday morning, as a winter storm tore through Hampshire, Berkshire and the West Country. To help people get a little secret sex, IllicitEncounters.com has even had to bring on temp staffers.

According to Sara Hartley, a spokesperson fro the site, “In light of these figures, I’d be interested to see how much work those ‘working from home’ have actually done.” She continues, “Perhaps these wives and husbands have just been waiting for a time when they could join, away from the eyes of their work colleagues and, most importantly, their partners…”

IllicitEncounters.com has more than 350,000 members in Britain, so if you’re lonely in London on a wintry day, maybe you should skip that walk by Buckingham Palace and enjoy a little takeout.

[Photo by Je@n via Flickr]

Has the Loch Ness Monster gone extinct?

by Sean McLachlan on

Things aren’t going well in Scotland. Last year was the worst year on record for sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. A documentary studied the possibility that Nessie has gone extinct, and even the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club is worried.

Only one “dependable” sighting, by a local man back in June, shows there might be life in the old critter yet, but if that’s a false alarm, where does that leave us? Locals around Loch Ness are worried last year’s poor showing may affect tourist numbers. In the United States, liberals are saying Nessie died of shame from being called a “monster” instead of the more politically correct term “evidence-challenged endangered species”. Conservatives claim Nessie was the first victim of the death panels set up by Obama’s America-hating, terrorist-loving national health care.

The number of sightings has been going down for a few years, so the creature or creatures may very well be dying out. Is it gone for good? Unless AOL coughs up a few million to equip me with sonar equipment and a submarine, I really can’t say.

Whatever happened to Nessie, take heart. There are plenty of lake monsters to go around. There’s a Nessie-like creature in Minnesota, one in Lake Champlain, and others scattered around the world. There’s even another Scottish beastie in Loch Morar, which was the subject of a recent investigation by blogger Tom Gates. He took the amazing photo shown here. Believe it or not it’s actually a fake, made with a little Nessie model and some basil, and should serve as a warning to serious cryptozoologists that common household items can be used to construct a photo that can fool even the experts.

I, for one, don’t think Nessie will ever die. Despite having walked on the Moon and plumbed the depths of the ocean, we as a species love a mystery, and will always need creatures like Nessie, Bigfoot, the Mothman, and Raw Head and Bloody Bones until we ourselves go extinct.%Gallery-13474%

British climber rescues himself, heads straight to the pub

by Kraig Becker on

A British climber earned legendary status earlier this week when he managed to not only drag himself down the mountain on a broken leg, but then elected to make his first stop at the local pub upon reaching civilization.

According to U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail, 44-year old Sean Moore was climbing on the 11,423 foot tall Mulhacen peak in Spain’s Sierra Navada mountains on Sunday when he fell, breaking his leg in the process. He then spent the next two nights alone on the mountain, with high winds, sub-zero temperatures, and heavy snow falling around him, before he decided to hobble down the mountain on his broken leg. Upon reaching the town of Granada, he wandered into a local bar, where the patrons immediately alerted the local authorities.

Moore’s wife had reported him missing on Sunday when he failed to return from Mulhacen, the tallest peak in mainland Spain. On Monday, search and rescue teams went to work on the mountain, but their efforts were hampered by the poor weather conditions. They began to fear the worst before the Brit turned up in the local pub.

At last report, Moore was still in the hospital in Granada, having been treated for exposure and recovering from surgery on his damaged leg. His injuries are described as non-life threatening however and he is said to be recovering nicely. There is no word on whether or not he had a drink in the pub while he waited for the ambulance.%Gallery-67351%

Do full-body scanners at UK airports break child porn laws?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

There’s been plenty of resistance to the new full-body scanners that have been installed in airports all over the world in the wake of The Great Underwear-Bomb Scare of 2009. Our own Scott Carmichael worried just last week that images of nude children could surface and find their way into the hands of pedophiles.

After Alan Johnson, the UK Home Secretary, announced yesterday that full-body scanners would be introduced at Heathrow Airport in about three weeks, many in the UK have grown concerned that a full-body scan of a child would break laws against child pornography. The law in question is the Protection of Children Act from 1978, which prohibits creating an indecent image or “psuedo-image” of a child.

“They do not have the legal power to use full body scanners in this way,” said Terri Dowty of the group Action for Rights of Children. Although she admitted the child porn laws do make an exception for preventing and investigating criminal activity, it’s unclear whether broad screening by airport security personnel falls under this exception.

A spokesperson for the UK Department of Transport said he “understand[s] the concerns expressed about privacy in relation to the deployment of body scanners.”

“It is vital staff are properly trained and we are developing a code of practice to ensure these concerns are properly taken into account,” he said.

We’ll keep you posted on the legal challenges that are sure to arise in the coming weeks and months.

More here.