Emperor

The NHS is going to use drones to fly blood samples across London to avoid the traffic.

Drone flights will mean the samples can be transported in a fraction of the time it currently takes couriers via road, officials said.

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust has launched a pilot scheme that intends to drastically speed up the time taken to move blood from major hospitals in the capital to labs for analysis.

Usually, moving samples between Guy's Hospital and the lab at St Thomas' Hospital takes more than half an hour on the road.

However, the same journey can be done in less than two minutes by drone, officials said.

The research team also said there were environmental benefits to the switch in transport methods.

The owner of the Guardian has confirmed it is in talks to sell the Observer, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, to Tortoise Media.

Tortoise has approached Guardian Media Group (GMG) with an offer to invest around £25m over the next five years on the "editorial and commercial renewal" of the Observer.

Tortoise was launched five years ago by James Harding, a former BBC News chief and a former editor of the Times newspaper.

The Guardian reported that the title will remain a seven-day-a-week digital operation regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Tortoise about the Observer.

Observer staff were told that the investment would "help to safeguard its future" as a standalone product.

GMG is not actively trying to sell the Observer, but it is examining the Tortoise proposal to see if it is viable.

Founded in 1791, the Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, with a staff of around 70.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/17555750

The search for an escaped capybara which fled a zoo four days ago is continuing "around the clock".

Cinnamon fled her habitat at Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Telford on Friday and entered woodlands within the zoo grounds.

The last sighting of her was on Saturday, after she managed to get beyond the perimeter fence.

Zoo owner Will Dorrell said he believed Cinnamon had made it to the Humber Brook river, near the attraction's northern boundary, where "she's probably living her best life".

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Cinnamon escaped when keepers entered the capybara enclosure to mow the paddock, as she was hidden in long grass near the gate, Mr Dorrell said.

When the gate was opened, she slipped around the side of a tractor to leave the enclosure.

"Our two young capybara here are always trying to work out a different way of trying to cause us headaches," Mr Dorrell said.

"They’re extremely intelligent which a lot of people might not necessarily appreciate.

"She seemed to know what we were going to do and was waiting there ready for that gate to be opened."

While a capybara has never escaped from the zoo before, Mr Dorrell said one managed to dig under a fence to get into an ostrich enclosure a few years ago, but quickly realised she wanted to come back

The search for an escaped capybara which fled a zoo four days ago is continuing "around the clock".

Cinnamon fled her habitat at Hoo Zoo and Dinosaur World in Telford on Friday and entered woodlands within the zoo grounds.

The last sighting of her was on Saturday, after she managed to get beyond the perimeter fence.

Zoo owner Will Dorrell said he believed Cinnamon had made it to the Humber Brook river, near the attraction's northern boundary, where "she's probably living her best life".

...

Cinnamon escaped when keepers entered the capybara enclosure to mow the paddock, as she was hidden in long grass near the gate, Mr Dorrell said.

When the gate was opened, she slipped around the side of a tractor to leave the enclosure.

"Our two young capybara here are always trying to work out a different way of trying to cause us headaches," Mr Dorrell said.

"They’re extremely intelligent which a lot of people might not necessarily appreciate.

"She seemed to know what we were going to do and was waiting there ready for that gate to be opened."

While a capybara has never escaped from the zoo before, Mr Dorrell said one managed to dig under a fence to get into an ostrich enclosure a few years ago, but quickly realised she wanted to come back

The owner of Framestore, the special effects powerhouse behind the visuals in many Marvel movies, has revealed that it is still reeling from the strikes which gripped Hollywood for more than six months last year and caused its revenue to plummet by $46.7 million to $665.6 million.

Framestore has worked on more than ten movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe including all of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and next year's Fantastic Four. It is in a prime position to get the work as it is the leading SFX agency in the United Kingdom where many Marvel movies are shot due to the lucrative government incentives on offer to studios.

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The dark clouds began to gather in May last year when writers downed their tools in a bid to boost their pay and royalties from streaming shows. They were followed by actors two months later and although the curtain came down on the dispute in November, by then studios had delayed the release dates of many movies including this year's chart-topper Deadpool & Wolverine, which Framestore also worked on.

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The financial statements confirm that "due to the challenges faced by the group arising from the writers’ and actors’ strike an impairment of $19,852,000 has been recognised in the year ended 31 December 2023 against the investment held in Infinity Bidco Limited."

The value was written down despite an improvement in the fortunes of Framestore's direct operating company Guidedraw, which retained its value. Its revenue rose 8.1% to $376.2 million in 2023 as the decline in business from North America was more than offset by an increase from British productions which were not part of the Hollywood strikes. Combined with careful cost control, this helped it to generate a $7.9 million operating profit, up from a $6.3 million loss in 2022.

Archive

It’s been almost 20 years since the pastel-hued houses in the picture-perfect harbour village of Balamory appeared on television screens.

On Tuesday, the BBC has announced it had commissioned two new series of the beloved CBeebies show to return in 2026.

Originally produced between 2002 until 2005, it is expected that the new series will once again be set in the Scottish village of Balamory where coloured houses nestle round a charming harbour with stories centred on a nursery school and teacher.

Balamory’s first run attracted millions of viewers across the world, spawned a live show and won best pre-school live action series at the 2004 Bafta children’s awards.

The show will once again be filmed in Scotland, the broadcaster said, either in the original location of Tobermory or another Scottish location such as Rothesay.

It's another big month for home video as we look ahead toward end-of-2024 releases! Pre-orders are now live for Blu-ray sets that launch this December, including a huge Tokyo Ghoul 10th Anniversary Box Set and more!

Beyond that impressive collection, Crunchyroll has the home video debut of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End on the horizon along with brand new Steelbook releases of the first three Attack on Titan seasons, more Dr. STONE and the complete season of DARLING in the FRANXX.

The BBC presenter Jay Blades has been charged with engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour against his wife. The Repair Shop presenter appeared at Kidderminster magistrates court on Friday, West Mercia police said.

The Guardian understands that the BBC took steps to remove a programme featuring Blades from its Friday evening schedule after the charge, and that no programmes with the former furniture maker would be shown in the foreseeable future.

Blades, 54, was charged with one count of engaging in controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship. The presenter will appear at Worcester crown court for a plea and trial preparation hearing on 11 October.

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According to court documents, the charge relates to his fitness instructor wife, Lisa Zbozen, who announced on her Instagram page on 2 May that their relationship was over.

Blades has become a well-known figure thanks to the BBC restoration programme The Repair Shop, in which members of the public take damaged but treasured family heirlooms to be restored by a team of experts. A source at the broadcaster said Blades was not a BBC employee and the charge was unrelated to his work at the BBC.

Blades’ rise from furniture maker to TV celebrity has been meteoric since he first featured on the show in 2017. In August Channel 4 broadcast Dame Judi and Jay: The Odd Couple, which charts the friendship between Blades and Dench, who he first met on The Repair Shop two years ago.

On Friday the BBC removed the seventh episode of the first series of David & Jay’s Touring Toolshed, Blades which was first shown by the broadcaster in January and features Blades and David Jason touring the UK meeting master crafters and hobbyists.

In 2022 Blades featured in the BBC documentary Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51, which followed his journey of learning to read and write, having not been taught to do so in childhood.

The Outcasts, which tells the story of a ‘mad’ young woman in pre-famine Ireland who meets a feared shaman and has her powerful true nature revealed to her, is the great lost classic of Irish cinema. Combining gritty realism in its depiction of rural Irish poverty, sexual frankness and mythic grandeur, it had a tremendously powerful effect on Irish cinephiles of a certain age, myself included, but has been impossible to see in any decent form in the four decades since its release.

A beautiful new restoration by the Irish Film Archive is finally putting this right, and a generation of folk-horror fans are about to get the opportunity to see this poetic, unforgettable work for the first time.

I spoke to its writer-director, Robert Wynne-Simmons, who also scripted the classic British folk-horror The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), about the production of the film and his feelings about seeing it rediscovered by a new generation.

A neo-Nazi who amassed an "armoury" at his home in Stirlingshire has been found guilty of crimes including plans to commit an act of terrorism.

Alan Edward, who had nearly 28,000 followers on social media, had discussed an attack on a LBGT group in Falkirk, the High Court in Stirling heard.

He denied all the offences, but a jury found him guilty of charges under the Terrorism Act, racism, anti-Semitism, holocaust denial and breach of the peace.

The trial heard that Edward wrote the "the quickest way to someone's heart is with a high power 7.62mm round".

Police found weapons and equipment including a crossbow, 14 knives - some with Nazi and SS insignia, machetes, a tomahawk, a samurai sword, knuckledusters, a catapult, an extendable baton and a stun gun.

They also found an air pistol, an SS-style skull mask, goggles and a respirator, fighting gloves with hardened knuckles, pellets, ball bearings, and hunting tips for crossbow arrows.

Prosecutors said it amounted to "an armoury" of weapons.

Edward also had an indoor cannabis plantation that he was growing to sell.

The court heard he possessed and expressed "a set of ideals with a neo-Nazi outlook, incorporating notions of white supremacy, the notion of racial purity of whites, racism, anti-semitism, and hatred of homosexuals and transgender people".