From tubby smoker to record-breaking runner: Former 20-a-day man Steve Way finishes 10th in Commonwealth Games marathon, breaking 35-year British record Daily Mail

Steve Way.

  Way finished 10th for England in the marathon at Glasgow 2014 

  He promised to celebrate with his first pint of lager in three months

  Shortly after the race he tweeted with the hashtag #BestDayEver

  He once weighed more than 16st and smoked 20 cigarettes a day

  He changed his lifestyle and now runs 130 miles a week

  The 40-year was the fourth man home at the London marathon

Seven years ago, he was an overweight smoker who feasted on chocolate and takeaways.

But yesterday, Steve Way finished tenth in the Commonwealth Games marathon, breaking a 35-year-old  British record. And the 40-year-old  celebrated his feat by drinking his first pint of lager for three months.

The bank worker finished in two hours, 15 minutes and 16 seconds, beating Ron Hill’s 1979 best for the over-40s. Mr Way, from Bournemouth, weighed sixteen and a half stone and smoked 20 cigarettes a day when he decided to get fit at the age of 33.

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Views, Visions and Values.: To boldly go, where no-one has gone before !

Views, Visions and Values.: To boldly go, where no-one has gone before !: When I was growing up, my parents and grandparents would take me and my two sisters on holidays to Ifracombe on the North Devon ...



Some of us in coming days, He will ask to be Pioneers, and to go where no-one has gone before or for some time, to break into new territory or to go and re-claim territory. I'm now going to share some Scriptures with you, and my Prayer is that God will use these Scriptures to challenge you for the first time or to challenge for you for the thousandth time, and follow his direction, which will not only impact your own live, but impact the lives of others, those who is sending you to.

God’s Purpose or Mine? My Uttermost for His Highest Oswald Chambers, Daily Devotionals

Oswald Chambers

God’s Purpose or Mine?

He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side . . . —Mark 6:45

We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.

What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see “Him walking on the sea” with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see “Him walking on the sea” (Mark 6:49). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.

God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.

God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.

'Referenda are always a gamble': Kenneth Clarke slams David Cameron for allowing Scotland to vote on independence Daily Mail

Ken Clark MP.

Kenneth Clarke has accused David Cameron of ‘taking a gamble’ with the future of the United Kingdom by allowing Scotland a referendum on independence.

The veteran Tory, who left the Cabinet in this month’s reshuffle, made clear his disapproval of the vote on September 18.

‘Referenda are always a gamble,’ warned Mr Clarke. ‘To have big complicated questions decided by one vote on one day is not as good as a continuous process of parliamentary debate.

‘Having risked the future of the United Kingdom, I trust that the good sense of the Scottish people will keep it together. 

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Menace of the new parking cowboys: Drivers 'fined' £100 for overstaying by minutes at fast food chains and shops , Daily Mail

  Tickets doled out  private firms do not have official legal status

  Many are in fact issued unfairly and without the proper legal authority

  AA president Edmund King says many use 'scare tactics and bullying' 

  Drivers cannot be compelled to pay unless a court order is granted 

‘Cowboy’ parking squads hired by High Street firms are hitting hundreds of thousands of drivers with £100 ‘fines’ and using threats to make them pay up.

The companies – employed by fast food chains, retailers and railway operators – issue what appear to be official penalty notices, similar to those used by council traffic wardens. They then extract huge sums from drivers who are sometimes just a few minutes late in returning to their cars.

However, the tickets do not have the same legal standing as official fines.

Many are being issued unfairly and – in some cases – without proper legal authority.

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Additional Story on Parking

Scotland could run out of cash just like Greece, Scottish Sunday Express

S

cotland would need to severely downsize its financial sector in order to avoid a major economic crisis if the country votes to break away from the rest of Britain.

According to former Scottish Government economist Florian Baier and former Bank of England economist Erik Britton, an independent Scotland would be left over-reliant on its financial sector and North Sea oil.

The economists’ upcoming paper for Fathom Consulting estimates the country’s banking assets as potential liabilities would be 1,100 per cent of GDP, similar to the liabiities that caused an economic crisis in Iceland in which its government took over three of its largest banks in 2008.

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Dog owner to sue council because her spaniel slipped a disc in GRASS and she cannot afford to pay the £5,000 vet bill Daily Mail

A

 dog owner plans to sue a council for thousands of pounds after her pet slipped a disc in grass while chasing a cat.

Scooby, a three-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, was injured after getting his leg caught in long grass on council-owned land in Brighton, East Sussex.

His disabled owner Rebecca Richardson, 48, claims that she now faces a £5,000 veterinary bill which she cannot afford to pay as she lives on benefits.

Campaigners criticised Mrs Richardson and her husband Steven, 49, for their claim and said it was yet another example of the ‘compensation culture gone mad’.

But Mrs Richardson said Brighton and Hove City Council, which owns her house and the land outside it, was negligent and ‘completely responsible’ for what happened to her pet. 

She claimed that she and other neighbours had been asking for the long grass outside their homes to be cut for a month before the accident. 

  Scooby the spaniel slipped a disc after getting his leg caught in long grass

  Disabled owner Rebecca Richardson, 48, says she now faces £5,000 vet bill

  Claims she cannot afford to pay it as she lives on benefits at Brighton home

  Believes city council is 'responsible' for fall because it failed to cut the grass

  But campaigners deem claim an example of 'compensation culture gone mad'

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Rebecca Richardson