Granddad at 29... but hospital staff demand his ID because they think he's too young to be the FATHER!

By Daily Mail Reporter
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

A 29-year-old man who has become one of Britain's youngest grandparents was left red-faced after nurses asked him to prove he was over 16 as he tried to visit his daughter's baby. 


Unemployed Shem Davies was overjoyed when 14-year-old Tia gave birth to Gracie earlier this month. 


But when he tried to visit the ward, maternity nurses thought the fresh-faced granddad was in fact the teenage father of Gracie and asked him to prove his age. 


Shem and former girlfriend Kelly John, 30, became parents to Tia at the age of 15. Their daughter's boyfriend, Jordan Williams, is 15. 


Shem said: 'It is an absolute joy to see Gracie thriving. I'm incredibly proud of Tia. She'll be a brilliant mum. At first I wasn't overly pleased that she was pregnant but I soon got over than. Now it's all about being positive.

Happy family: Jordan, bottom left, with Tia and Gracie, and proud grandparents Shem and Kelly

'I've got to know Jordan and he's shaping up to be a decent young man,' Shem told The People.

But the arrival of Gracie wasn't easy as Tia was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, seven weeks before her due date.

 

Worried doctors decided their best option would be to deliver the tot by Caesarean section.

The condition, which often leaves expectant mothers with high blood pressure and protein in their urine, could lead to life-threatening symptoms for both mother and baby.
Tia said the contrast between the carefree fun of the school playground and then the fear of death for her and the baby was something she would never forget.


Happily after a 25 minute operation Gracie was born but only weighed 2lb and was rushed to the special care unit at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend, which is close to the family home.


Little Gracie is still being kept in an incubator but has managed to put on enough weight which means she will be allowed home in a few weeks. 

A week after Gracie was born Tia celebrated her 15th birthday in the ward surrounded by friends and family.

Fighter: Tiny Gracie is thriving but will be in an incubator for a few weeks

Proud parents: Jordan and Tia with their newborn daughter Gracie who was born prematurely

The teenager, who has been dating Jordan for 18 months and wants to be a hairdresser, said she didn't plan on celebrating her birthday in hospital but added that her baby daughter was the best present she could ask for.

Once mother and daughter have been released from hospital they will be staying with grandmother Kelly so that Tia can finish school.

Grandad Shem, who has a young son of his own, said he is keen to get stuck in and help Tia and Jordan settle into life.


Jordan, who sat his final GCSE just weeks before Gracie arrived, said he understands responsibility. 'I'm captain of the school rugby team and that's like having 14 kids.'

Father and daughter: Shem with his daughter Tia and granddaughter Gracie

Despite her young age, mother Tia says that she would not be happy if newborn Gracie became pregnant at 14 but that she would do as her mum did, which is respect her choice to have a child.

She also paid tribute to her mother, who was 15 when she was born, saying that she could not have wished for a better parent and role model adding that they have a very close relationship.

Britain's high teenage pregnancy rate means that many more young people in this generation are set to become grandparents in their late twenties and early thirties.

The latest figures show in 2009 38,259 girls under 18 became pregnant, but nearly 50 per cent had a termination.

The UK still leads the way when it comes to young mothers, and our rate is five-times higher than in the Netherlands and twice that of France and Spain.

Proof that British cops are 500% kinder than American cops

By Ross Borden
Drunk napper

“Can we give you a lift?” Wow. I was shocked when I saw this.
In America, this guy, who obviously stumbled into the wrong house when he was blacked out drunk and proceeded to pass out cold on a stranger’s floor, would have woken up to a knee being dropped on his back and probably a taser to help him wake up – had this been a scene from a house in the US.
He almost certainly would have been taken to jail too, and charged with trespassing and maybe breaking and entering or reckless endangerment. In England, he was helped to his feet and offered a ride home.
No, I don’t believe this behavior should be condoned, but it is refreshing to see police officers in some countries show a bit of compassion and react in a way that is somewhat constructive, instead of just being violent because they have an excuse to.

The T-Mobile Royal Wedding - Dance Procession

Uploaded by lifesforsharing

Watch the wedding entrance dance to top all wedding entrance dances. T-Mobile's Royal Wedding Dance celebrates the marriage of William and Kate with the help of a host of royal look alikes and music from East 17! T-Mobile wishes William and Kate a long and happy marriage. Join our Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/tmobileuk

British Person Goes Insane On Bus Then Turns Terminator watch!

youtube.com — Who said the British are polite. This guys goes ape sh*t on the bus. 4 minutes of total rage. I don't understand a single word he says. At the end, he goes terminator.

10 year old British schoolboy hailed as 'next Picasso'

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/

A British schoolboy has stunned the art world by producing paintings that look like Picasso's.

Hamad Al Humaidhan has already been snapped up by an international art agency despite still being at primary school.

So what is all the fuss about?

Anna Holligan reports.

Britain's youngest mum: Girl who was pregnant at 11 says she will fight to see her daughter

By Maureen Culley
From : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

Aged just 12 years old, this is Britain's youngest mother holding her newborn baby.

Still a child herself, the new parent's sunken, fearful eyes and inability to smile transform what should be a joyful moment into a desperately unsettling scene.

Tressa Middleton's pregnancy four years ago shocked the nation when she admitted having sex while drunk and spoke of her excitement at becoming a mother.

Now the Scot is 16 and fighting for the right to see her adopted daughter again, as the uneasy images of her holding her baby are shown for the first time.

She yesterday admitted spiralling into a deep depression and turning to alcohol and drugs after the baby was born, when she found herself battling to keep the infant.

Unsettling: Pictures taken of Tressa Middleton soon after the birth in 2006

Miss Middleton said she has quit drugs and alcohol and spoke of her regret at ever letting her baby go.

She told the Scottish Sun: 'I'm not a big drinker now and I don't smoke hash any more. In the past I've cut myself but I don't do that any more. I'm going to give myself a couple of years to get my life sorted, then I'm going to fight for access to my little girl.

When her daughter was born in 2006, the pair were taken into foster care. Eighteen months ago, a child psychologist decided it was in the best interests of the infant that she be adopted.

Miss Middleton signed papers handing over her daughter to an anonymous couple who, when the adoption became official, decided that they did not want to allow the birth mother any access.

Her only contact is now a letter from the child's new parents every six months, updating her on the little girl's progress.

Miss Middleton said yesterday: 'I got to meet her adoptive parents but I wasn't allowed to know their names. They were maybe mid-30s. They seemed lovely but it doesn't really matter who was taking her - I never wanted to let her go.

'After I'd signed the adoption papers, I went to court to fight for twice-a-year contact. I'd even tried to make a deal that if I signed the papers I would get to see her once a year, but the adoptive parents didn't want that. They don't want me to see her. They want to get on with their lives. It makes me hate them.

'At the end of the day, she's my wee girl and I'm doing them a favour. I wasn't asking for much, asking to see her once a year, but they thought I was.'

Heartache: Tressa, now 16, wants to see her child

When she became pregnant in 2005, the case prompted dismay from church and family groups, amid criticisms that a Scottish Executive campaign to cut teenage pregnancies had failed.

Concern over 'broken Britain' rose further when details of Miss Middleton's chaotic home life in Armadale, West Lothian,emerged.

She was one of six children - by four different fathers - to her then 34-year-old mother, who said she was 'proud' of her daughter for keeping the baby.

On the bleak streets where Miss Middleton was raised, petty crime is rife and drink and drugs are ever present. Boarded-up windows abound and gardens are strewn with bed frames, discarded mattresses and other rubbish.

Children gather on street corners and it is far from unusual to see young girls pushing prams.

Despite barely being out of primary school, Miss Middleton smoked up to 20 cigarettes a day, used cannabis and downed cocktails of Buckfast tonic wine and vodka.

Speaking under the cover of anonymity at the time, she disclosed that she had discovered the pregnancy weeks after having drunken sex in August 2005.

Drawing on a roll-up cigarette while heavily pregnant, she said: 'I slept with him because I was drunk and I wanted to. I don't regret it because if I didn't have sex with him I wouldn't have my baby. I knew straight away that I couldn't have an abortion because that's something I don't believe in.'

The girl was scared to tell her mother who, ironically, had given birth to her youngest child days before her daughter found that she was pregnant.

Miss Middleton admitted that she had an argument with her mother after breaking the news of her pregnancy.

'It was hard but it has brought me and my mum closer together,' she said. 'It's good to know I'll have my mum there to help me if I need her.'

Now 16 and legally an adult, she is able to speak openly about her experiences for the first time and has also allowed the images of those early moments after the birth to be published.

Miss Middleton, who believes she has 'turned a corner' in her life, hopes to join the Army and prove that she deserves to see her child again.

She spoke yesterday of the time when she first felt that she would lose her daughter.

This came before the adoption was even official, when the baby went to live with her foster family and the teenager was allowed to see the child only every three months at a family centre.

A child herself: Tressa with her newly-born daughter

The young mother said: 'My daughter sometimes called me "Mummy" then one day she called me by my first name and called her foster carer "Mum". It really hurt and I burst into tears. Then she wouldn't come to me. She refused and would start screaming. It felt like every time I saw her I was losing her more and more.

'The adoptive parents gave her their surname. They've kept her first name the same, but hearing that her name had changed was heartbreaking. It's like they're turning my wee girl into someone different. She was dressed different and her hair was different. It was hard to see someone else bringing up my wee girl.'

Miss Middleton is not allowed to know where her daughter is living or see photographs, although the latest progress letter, from March, described the three-year-old as 'a very happy, chatty, self-confident and together little girl.'

Miss Middleton said: 'When I read it I just started crying. It says she can read numbers 0-9 and count to 20. That's all the things I wanted to teach her as her mum. It's wee simple things like that which affect me.

'I get upset when I see wee girls walking past with their mums. I miss my wee girl every day. I've kept all her clothes from when she was a baby. I keep under my pillow a wee pink Babygro and hat from when she was born.'

Miss Middleton, who now has only limited contact with her own family and lives in Dumfries, admitted, however, that adoption was in her daughter's 'best interests'.

But she added: 'It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I don't think I can give my daughter the life she needs just now.

'When I'm older I want to build a relationship with my daughter. I'm concentrating on sorting myself out so that one day I'll hopefully see my wee girl again. I love her to bits.'

Will Arnett+David Cross in New Show in UK= HILARIOUS -- -- DAMN YOU, BRITAIN!

From: http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/

Back in June, I wrote about a new show for the UK’s Channel Four starring Will Arnett, David Cross, and Spike Jonze called “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.” It sounded awesome.

Here’s the first clip. It is awesome. You really can’t go wrong with Will Arnett swearing at people and David Cross lying like an awkward little weasel. HBO needs to buy the American rights to this with a quickness. I want more of this immediately. Like yesterday immediately.

[BuzzFeed]

I see London...I See France.,... I see yoor underpants

Drunk Chick Represents Everything Wrong With Britain

I'm not sure why, particularly given that it happened in Cardiff, the photo of this woman stumbling about town in an advanced state of déshabillité has resulted in such horror from the British tabs, but I do know that I can't decide which gasping description I prefer, the Sun's "The knickerless girl was seen in the centre of Cardiff after a heavy session," or the Mail's "This shrieking ladette was photographed staggering through Cardiff city centre late on Friday night." If only she were holding a knife, this would be perfect.

Guide to Britain's Best 200 Pubs

guardian.co.uk — There are more than 54,000 pubs in Britain, but the authors have whittled them down to the best 200. Explore the map to find the finest pubs in each area and view details, address information and a photo where applicable... Guide to Britain's Best 200 Pubs

Neolithic Age: Prehistoric Complex Including Two 6,000-year-old Tombs Discovered In Britain

ScienceDaily (June 9, 2009) — A prehistoric complex including two 6,000-year-old tombs representing some of the earliest monuments built in Britain has been discovered by a team led by a Kingston University archaeologist. Dr Helen Wickstead and her colleagues were stunned and delighted to find the previously undiscovered Neolithic tombs, also known as long barrows, at a site at Damerham, Hampshire.

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Dr Helen Wickstead examines some of the artefacts found at Damerham. (Credit: Image courtesy of Kingston University)

Some artefacts, including fragments of pottery and flint and stone tools, have already been recovered and later in the summer a team of volunteers will make a systematic survey of the site, recovering and recording any artefacts that have been brought to the surface by ploughing.

Dr Wickstead said that further work would help to reveal more about the Neolithic era. “We hope that scientific methods will allow us to record these sites before they are completely eroded,” she said. “If we can excavate, we’ll be able to say a lot more about Neolithic people in that area and find out things like who was buried there, what kinds of lives they led, and what the environment was like six thousand years ago.”

She said the find was particularly rare because it was close to Cranborne Chase, one of the most thoroughly researched prehistoric areas in Europe. “I was really excited. It’s rare to find sites of this kind and the tombs are likely to be of national importance,” said Dr Wickstead. ”What’s really extraordinary is the location – it’s one of the most famous prehistoric landscapes, a mecca for prehistorians, and you would have thought the archaeological world would have gone over it with a fine tooth comb.”

Dr Wickstead, a visiting researcher in the Faculty of Science, is also project manager of Damerham Archaeology Project, an educational body set up last year to discover more about the archaeology of the area around Damerham village.

The importance of the site at Damerham first emerged in 2003 when English Heritage spotted crop marks – which can indicate buried archaeological sites - on aerial photographs of the area. Dr Wickstead volunteered to begin geophysical tests of the area and it was while her team was planning the work that Martyn Barber, a member of the Damerham Archaeology Project, looked at a Windows Live Map of the area to find the car park where he was due to meet his colleagues and was astonished to see another tomb a few hundred metres from the first. “To find any new monuments of this date still visible as humps on the ground is unusual,” said Dr Wickstead, “But to find two is fantastic – we were flabbergasted.”

Work on the site is in its early stages but Dr Wickstead said the tombs may contain human bones, while nearby there are cropmark traces of some larger circular enclosures which may have been built at the same time as the prehistoric monument at Stonehenge, which is 15 miles away.

In Neolithic times, a ritual burial involved leaving a body out so the flesh would decay. Some of the bones were later put in a tomb, or relatives may even have kept some bones as a special talisman. ”We don’t know whether these sites contained chambers with bones in them - some long barrows never contained bones at all, rather like cenotaphs today. We may also find that any chambers have been destroyed by ploughing – only by excavating could we find out for sure,” said Dr Wickstead.

She said her team were sensitive to the emotions stirred by discovering human remains. “The recovery of ancient human remains is always handled sensitively,” said Dr Wickstead. “We feel respect for the dead people we study, and we treat their remains,with care.”

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Adapted from materials provided by Kingston University, via AlphaGalileo.

Kingston University (2009, June 9). Neolithic Age: Prehistoric Complex Including Two 6,000-year-old Tombs Discovered In Britain. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 10, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/06/090608143835.htm

Google Earth reveals fish trap made from rocks 1,000 years ago off British coast

By David Derbyshire

For a millennium it has lain undisturbed beneath the waves a stone's throw from one of Britain's best-loved beaches.

But now modern technology has revealed this ancient fish trap, used at the time of the Norman Conquest.

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The giant fish trap, built during the Norman Conquest and designed to trap fish behind rock walls, was spotted on Google Earth

Stretching more than 280 yards along the sea bed, the V-shaped structure was used to catch fish without the need for a boat or rod. Scientists believe it is one of the biggest of its kind.

The trap close to Poppit Sands on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed was discovered by archaeologists studying aerial photographs of the West Wales coast.

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This image shows the coastline curving round with the trap visible out at sea. It is in water just 12ft deep, and the wall is around three feet wide

'The fish trap is a fascinating find,' says project leader Dr Ziggy Otto

It was designed to act like a rock pool, trapping fish behind its stone walls as the tide flowed out.

At its point is a gap where fisherman would have placed nets to catch fish. They could also have blocked up the gap, and then scooped up fish trapped in the shallows.

Now, however, it is submerged even at low tide and fish are no longer trapped as the water recedes. Researchers believe it has sunk into the sand over the centuries.

Dr Ziggy Otto, a diver and lecturer in the coastal environment at Pembrokeshire College, believes the trap is around 1,000 years old.

'It is an amazing structure,' he said. 'It looks well defined on the photographs, but when you are in the water it looks just like a natural reef.'

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The trap, made of stones, is located on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed, Wales

Although it was only recently spotted on aerial photographs, an armchair archaeologist could have discovered the trap on Google Earth.

Google said the V-shaped structure has been visible on its collection of satellite and aerial photos since at least December 2006.

Fish traps, or fish weirs, were common and controversial in Britain 1,000 years ago.

They were so effective at removing fish from rivers that they were banned in the Magna Carta, and were allowed only on the coast.