Police warn girl her chalk hopscotch grid is criminal damage

A schoolgirl was told off by police for drawing a hopscotch grid on the pavement, according to her father. Officers even warned the 10-year-old she might have committed criminal damage as she played the traditional game outside her house in Ramsgate, Kent.
Lilly Allen had marked out a grid in chalk - which washes away in the rain - when she was apparently approached by two officers.

'Two policemen in a car drove up to her and said it was illegal to draw on the floor as it was criminal damage,' her father Bob told The Sun. 'I am absolutely seething they have done this.'

After posting evidence of the incident on his Facebook page, Mr Allen, 51, joked: 'I call her Banksy now.'
The angry father has lodged a complaint with Kent Police about their heavy-handed behaviour. Authorities are now investigating the incident, and admit that the officers may have gone too far when they accused Lilly of committing a crime.

A police spokesman said: 'We are trying to trace the officers who are reported to have made this comment. From the circumstances described, it would not appear to have been necessary to advise the young girl that chalking a hopscotch grid may be criminal damage and illegal.'
The traditional children's game of hopscotch is unlikely to be wiped out by officious policemen any time soon. The game, in which children hop from box to box in a set pattern, has been played for centuries. Many school playgrounds have hopscotch grids built in, but children can also draw a grid in chalk with ease.
The is a good demonstration that there are people that use and abuse authority.

Are you beautiful enough?

Not long ago I wanted to get some new clothes and decided to try out Abercrombie & Fitch. After a few minutes I started to feel that the staff in the store were eyeing me out to work out if I was good looking enough to be shopping in their store. This started to make me uncomfortable and so I left the shop with nothing.

When I did some research into Abercrombie & Fitch I found out many news articles, blogs, forums and comments saying almost the some thing. Which is, they only allow thin and beautiful customers to shop in their stores.

As one person explains 'Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't make its womenswear above large, or pants above a size ten, they have been accused of purposefully excluding plus-sized customers.'

In 2004, the company was sued for giving positions to white applicants, to the exclusion of minorities; and in June 2009, British student Riam Dean, who was born without a left forearm, won approximately $12,000 in an employment tribunal.

Then I started to notice that Abercrombie & Fitch were not the only ones refusing service to customers because of the way they look or what they believe in. There was a case where a florist was sued for refusing service to gay couple.

There have even been cases where customers been refused service because the customer did not want to give them there name.

This kind of attitude of company's being highly selective of there customers e.g. sexual orientation, religion, wealth or looks, and refusing to serve a particular type of person or even chucking the customer out because of the way they look, should be against human rights or a hate crime and people have won cases against companies that do this.

Virgin not the only one making mistakes

In one of my previous blogs, I had mentioned about Virgin blouse/bra incident but apprently they are not the only ones.
 
Staff on the Heathrow Express are among the first Londoners many visitors see. Because first impressions count, they were given a new uniform last July, to impress during the Olympics. The two-tone skirt suits for women and trouser suits with asymmetrical buttoning for men were part of a £16 million rebranding of the line. No Uniform, who created the get-up, said they aimed to promote “a professional, refined and confident brand image”. But they were the subject of heavy criticism from the fashion pack. Fashion PR expert Nick Ede said: “They’ve obviously got influence from the Wizard of Oz. It looks like ‘Welcome to the Emerald City’ rather than ‘Welcome to the Olympic city’. They’re extremely unflattering and the colour makes staff look ill, like they’ve got jaundice.” The uniform has not been changed.

Sales staff at this clothes shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, have to be so attractive that their job title is “model” rather than shop assistant. The company has been criticised for its detailed appearance policy. The male “greeters”who stand outside are shirtless and in 2009, law student Riam Dean, who has a prosthetic arm, said the company hid her from customers because the cardigan she wore to cover her artificial arm did not fit the store's "look policy". But it’s on CEO Michael Jeffries’s private jet that the uniform is really specific. According to a 47-page “aircraft standards” manual published in 2010, male flight crew are required to be clean shaven and wear Abercrombie boxer briefs, polo shirts, jeans, flip flops and spritz the retailer's cologne #41 at regular intervals.  Everything is specified, including the precise temperature at which the crew may wear coats, 10C. The jacket should be zipped up to the fourth button from the bottom and the lowest button should be left undone. Hats are against the rules unless the temperature is below 5C. When they are worn, brims must be two-inches thick and pulled down "approximately in the middle of the forehead". The manual also stipulates that Phil Collins’ Take Me Home is played over the jet’s intercom as they take off on homeward bound flights.

It should have been a warning for Richard Branson. Female staff on National Express trains between London and Edinburgh gave back their uniforms in 2009 because the blouses were too revealing. The outfits were "simply too thin and too cheap", making them virtually "see-through", the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) claimed. More than 500 blouses were sent back and National Express were accused of "cutting costs at every corner". Now the blouses are more opaque but still don’t look like the height of chic.

Last month, Spring Airlines announced plans to make its flight attendants dress as maids and butlers. Concerns were raised over the health and safety risks of the low-cost Chinese airline’s uniform ideas, which include short skirts and high heels. Pictures of the designs posted on the airline’s Facebook page have so far received nearly 600“likes”. Other costumes suggested on the page include school uniform and superheroes and villains. They are not the first airline to cause controversy with their dresscodes. In March, female flight attendants at Asiana Airlines won a long-running battle to overturn a skirts-only dresscode, and Lion Air staff wear kimonos.

While Team Virgin’s uniform has been dubbed too revealing, staff at this elite law firm (Allen & Overy) have been told to cover up. The “Magic Circle” firm where Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy works famously told female trainees not to wear skimpy skirts and towering heels to the office. In 2011, just before Davy started, they sent out an email ticking off staff for turning up looking more like nightclubbers than would-be solicitors. They said that the timing of the email and Davy’s arrival was just a coincidence.

The Olimpics outfit that Jessica Ennis, Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah and Ellie Simmonds wore when they won their medals, but when Stella McCartney’s kit for Team GB was unveiled it met with heavy criticism. Many branded it a “massive fail” for not featuring enough red. There’s a red trim but it isn’t used as part of the flag.  McCartney defended herself saying: “I see many feel as strongly about the Union flag as I do! The design actually uses more red and shows more flag than any Team GB kit since '84.”  Once the games started, the criticism abated – we had more important things to concentrate on. Meanwhile, the Games Makers’ outfits were mocked, with people saying that the pink and purple shirts made them look like Quality Street chocolates or as if they were inspired by Percy Pigs. Other countries didn’t have it any easier. The US team wore All-American Ralph Lauren blazers but were criticised when it emerged that they were in fact made in China.

Iconic South Bank skate park under threat

Skateboarders and graffiti artists who have put the Southbank Centre undercroft on the international tourist map for 40 years are fighting plans that would see it turned into restaurants and shops. Long Live Southbank has lodged an application with Lambeth council to protect the undercroft by listing it as a community asset. More than 25,000 people have signed an online petition, with messages of support from around the world.

A three-day event, organised by Long Live Southbank, over the bank holiday weekend showcased the artistic and skating heritage of the site. Under plans published by the Southbank Centre, the undercroft, a famous skateboarding venue since the Seventies, would be lost forever.

Last month the Southbank Centre announced a £120 million transformation including new space for performances, exhibitions and socialising.

Jude Kelly, the Southbank Centre’s artistic director, described the area occupied by the skaters as “Cinderella space”. Her plans are for more shops and restaurants at ground level with skaters offered an alternative space near Hungerford Bridge.

Speaking on behalf of Long Live Southbank, Henry Edwards-Wood said: “We recognise that the Southbank Centre has to adapt and improve their facilities to attract new visitors but the undercroft is an iconic venue on the Southbank which has attracted skaters, artists and filmmakers for over 40 years.

“Southbank say in their plans that they will create a new home for the skaters next to Hungerford Bridge, but that misses the point.

“What we have now wasn’t designed by committee. It grew organically and is totally unique. People come from all over the world to watch the skaters on the Southbank and it’s sad to think something this creative could be replaced by something as unimaginative and sterile as another glass mall.”
Lambeth council leader Lib Peck said: “The Southbank Centre is an important asset to the borough, and the skate park has become an established part of it. We would like to see skateboarding kept on the South Bank, and are confident that a satisfactory solution can be found.”

M from 007, uncovers real name

Blogger Phil Noble Jr spotted
the name while watching Skyfall (Picture: AP)

At long last, the codename has been broken and the secret has been revealed. The mystery surrounding 007’s mentor, known only by her codename M, but her real name has been unveiled as Olivia Mansfield.

A fan freeze-framed a single camera shot in Skyfall, lasting just a split-second, during a scene where Bond (Daniel Craig) is given a box containing a Royal Doulton bulldog draped in a British flag, which usually sits on M’s (Judi Dench) desk.

Blogger Phil Noble Jr zoomed in to find the words ‘From the Estate of Olivia Mansfield Bequeathed to James Bond’ on the box’s inscription. Meg Simmons, archive director for Bond production company Eon, said: ‘We’ve searched around and as far as we can see this is the first and only time anyone’s ever revealed M’s real name.

‘It may not have been spoken, but if you were watching on a big enough screen it could have been visible, so we’d argue it’s now canon.’ The discovery has sparked speculation among other Bond fans that M’s codename could be a tribute to Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first head of MI6, who signed letters with the letter C.