Friday Five News 5/8/16

For LOCAL news I bring you this report on protests held today under the banner of Black Lives Matter.

I totally understand that black people feel they are not always treated fairly, particularly with regard to the way the police treat them.  Recent high profile cases in America and here show that.  And I also get that the slogan might not have been intended to suggest that black lives matter more than any others, rather that they needed to be considered as important as others rather than less.

But that is not the message that comes across, particularly when you have an organiser of such events Joshua Virasami saying black people should come together "to achieve justice and equality in Britain".

By only involving black people we will never solve the problem.  We need to work together on this.  And I’m not sure that protests which cause problems for ordinary people, such as those trying to get to Heathrow today, or go about their lives in Nottingham, will garner support for the movement.  All lives matter.

The INTERNATIONAL story that caught my eye today is this one about Sasha Obama’s summer job.  I understand that her parents want her to have as normal a life as possible but I’m sure turning up for your job at a restaurant with 6 bodyguards in tow is not normal!

In SPORT  the Olympics are the hot topic of the day with the much anticipated opening ceremony taking place in Rio later today.  (Coverage starts after 11pm here so I might just be catching the highlights tomorrow morning.

Inevitably there will be comparisons between these games and the London 2012 games, particularly as the budget for Brazil’s opening ceremony is much smaller than they had for London.  Fortunately, the London ceremony was so different from anything I’d ever seen before that we won’t be comparing like to like.  It’s sure to have a carnival feel to it though, that’s a given.

Just for a laugh I was going to link to the video clip of Andy Murray posing with the team, Princess Anne and the flag, getting into all sorts of problems with it.  It seems that the BBC have removed the video to spare his embarrassment but if you search for it on Youtube it’s easy to find.  Hopefully he’ll do better at the opening ceremony and thankfully he’s better at tennis.

Harry Potter features in the ENTERTAINMENT news again this week but not for a good reason.  Apparently tickets for the Cursed Child, the stage production which opened here in London in June, sell out as soon as they are released for sale.  Prices range from £15 to £70.  However if you’re desperate you can buy them online for anything up to £1000.  You would need to be more than just desperate as if the theatre suspects your tickets have been obtained from a re-sale site they will be declared void.

Under MISCELLANEOUS  I decided to browse the BBC’s magazine article “10 Things we didn’t know last week” for inspiration.  There were of course unusual and interesting facts.  The one that I actually checked out was the claim that “You can turn urine into beer using solar power” Yep sounds disgusting but apparently scientists have come up with a purifying machine, powered by solar energy, that will take urine and separate it into water and fertiliser components.  They recently collected lots of water by this method at a music festival and are planning to use the water to make beer.  I’m so glad I drink wine!

All links are courtesy of the BBC website. Opinions are my own.

Have a great weekend.