Not ‘who says?’ silly. WHO says! The World Health Organisation are set to raise the level of threat of swine lfu/H1N1/ NuFlu to Pandemic some time today after an emergency meeting and teleconference was called in Geneva to discuss the climbing infection rates.

So if you have packed away your face masks and strepsils go ahead and dig ‘em out again. Looks like you may be needing them after all.

Two years ago the shopkeepers and townsfolk of Stone in Staffordshire were right fed up with the local tearaways that rampaged about the place breaking windows and getting out of order.

Local policeman Andy Whitehall was familiar with the young troublemakers as he had arrested most of them at one time or another. He came up with the idea of keeping them out of trouble by starting up a boxing club. But the Right Stuff Boxing Club was to be a club with a catch. In order to be a member of it, each kid had to sign a contract to participate in socially beneficial activities like picking up litter, gardening and helping the elderly.

Andy Whitehall’s brilliant scheme was not only to teach the kids to be better community members but it also kept them visibly involved in beneficial projects which earned them the respect of the very people that once would happily have lynched them from the nearest lamppost.

Now the businesses and shopkeepers of Stone are so pleased with Andy’s little army that they clubbed together to raise the £8,000 to send them off on a reward trip to Tenerife.

You can read the full story and see videos of the youngsters preparing for and enjoying their trip to Tenerife on the BBC website. Check it out. It’s absolutely fabulous to see some positive news about Britains’ youngsters for a change and Andy Whitehall deserves a medal as much as those kids deserved a break.

Nikki Attree is a talented photographer and digital artist who lives and works in Tenerife (when she’s not surfing). She’s also spokesman for Tenerife’s many abandoned and stray dogs via the website Tenerife Dogs which she set up on behalf of the island’s dog and pet charities.

Nikki has donated her latest digital artwork to Live Arico to sell in the Live Arico Shop in Coral Mar Square, Costa Del Silencio. The small reproduction here does not do the picture justice and you have to admit it is not often you get the chance to get your paws on such a striking and original piece of art.

Proceeds of the sale go to feed and shelter some of the island’s throwaway ‘best friends’.