The guradian reports

A medical unit in a south London “garden shed” is saving the lives of homeless people. In January, nurse practitioner Samantha Dorney-Smith set up the “intermediate care unit” in the gardens of the 120-bed Cedars Road Hostel in Clapham. The St Mungo’s hostel is home to some of the most vulnerable people in the UK. Last year, seven of its residents died. Their average age was just 37.

Photograph: Martin Argles

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Sounds a bit too Daily Nail for my liking but it’s the BBC

More than 1,000 migrant workers across Slough are thought to be living in sheds in people’s back gardens.

Slough Borough Council believes the problem has become so great, it is working with the UK Border Agency and police to ensure tenants’ well-being.

Many of the shed-dwellers are living in an estimated 1,000 sheds, especially in Upton, Baylis, Central and Chalvey.

The council said it was clamping down on landlords and reminding them of the planning rules for outhouses.

Many of the buildings are legal and within the size permitted for the gardens they are within, however the majority should not be inhabited.

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The metro reports

Part of being a good neighbour is keeping an eye on someone’s house or watering the plants while they’re away.

But one couple have been left fuming after coming back from a sunshine break to discover their back garden had been taken – and the culprit was apparently their next-door neighbour.

Linzi and Phil Wood claim a path, rockery, plant pots, hanging baskets and even a £600 garden shed they built are now in Brian Johnson’s once scruffy, overgrown garden. Mr Johnson was not available for comment yesterday.

‘I don’t know how he moved the shed. I was so angry and frustrated; we’ve always got on with him and cannot understand his audacity. All you have to do is look over the fence and the whole of my garden is there.’

Thanks to workshopshed for the tip off.. any clues on how he moved everything (if he did?)

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According to the Guardian

London mayor takes down summer house built on balcony of his Islington home following complaints that it was erected without planning permission.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, faced embarrassment today after it emerged he has taken down a wooden shed he built on the balcony of his home following complaints to his local council.

As mayor, Johnson is in charge of planning issues in the capital. But he appears to have overlooked the rules when he erected the shed on a first floor balcony at his home in Islington more than two weeks ago.

Neighbours complained that it was an “eyesore” and that it should not have been put up at his Georgian house, which is a Grade II listed building, without planning permission.

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The BBC reports

Uttering expletives when you hurt yourself is a sensible policy, according to scientists who have shown swearing can help reduce pain.

A study by Keele University researchers found volunteers who cursed at will could endure pain nearly 50% longer than civil-tongued peers.

They believe swearing helps us downplay being hurt in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo.

The work by Dr Richard Stephens’ team appears in the journal NeuroReport.

Dr Stephens, from Keele’s school of psychology, came up with the idea for the study after swearing when he accidentally hit his thumb with a hammer as he built a garden shed.

We have all done it

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