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Bizarre loos, big drops and leaning houses - Photos from Sochi

Recent and archive images of the final push and journey to be ready for the Sochi Winter Olympics, which opens on Friday and ends on February 23. Sochi has for years been what President Vladimir Putin has called the world's biggest construction site, with new hotels being built with state money. Despite the concerns about safety, IOC President Thomas Bach said Russia had managed in seven years to transform an old-fashioned sub-tropical summer resort, once favoured by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, into a "modern all-year sport and tourism hub".

AWKWARD - A two-toilet double stall is seen in the lobby of a media hotel as preparations continue for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

WEIRD - The walls of a toilet are decorated with a mountain panorama wallpaper and skis on the floor at the "Red Fox" restaurant in the winter sport resort of Rosa Khutor, a venue for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

WHOOPS - A man looks at a residential house that started leaning after a tunnel collapse in the Russian Black sea resort of Sochi. The house, unnoccupied at the time, began leaning after a tunnel on a nearby road construction project fell in.

STUNNING - A general view of the accommodation at the athletes village in Rosa Khutor as preparations continue for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

OMINOUS - A member of the Russian military walks past a rocket launcher near residential houses next to the Olympic Park in the Adler district of Sochi.

HALF-HEARTED? - Workers paint a Sochi sign at the Rosa Khutor alpine resort near where the Winter Olympic Games are taking place.

GLORIOUS - Sweden's snowboarder Sven Thorgren goes off a jump during snowboard slopestyle training at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Rosa Khutor.

MAGNIFICENT - Course workers look at Switzerland's Martina Koch speeding down the track during the women's luge World Cup at the "Sanki" sliding center in the winter sport resort of Rosa Khutor, a venue for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

WHAT? - A photographer puts a python on a sunbather for a snapshot on a beach outside Russia's Black Sea city of Sochi. Photographing with exotic animals such as snakes, parrots, monkeys and alligators is popular among holiday-makers at the Black Sea coast of Russia.

FLYING - Snowboarders sail off jumps during snowboard slopestyle training at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Rosa Khutor.

STERN - A warning sign describes the rules for walking on the snow as snow cannons are in use at the Russki Gorki center where the Olympic ski jumping and Nordic combined events will take place in Rosa Khutor near Sochi.

DANGEROUS - Kim Jun Ho (L) of South Korea crashes during practice at the Adler Arena in preparation for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

CUTE? - Russian President Vladimir Putin strokes a Persian leopard during his visit to the Persian Leopard Breeding and Rehabilitation Centre in the Sochi national park.

MASCOTS - Women in traditional Russian costumes wait for the prize-giving ceremony after the two-men bobsleigh test event at the "Sanki" sliding center in Rosa Khutor, a venue for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

First major snowfall this winter as Britain braces itself for

big freeze

A fresh covering of snow sparkles in the winter sunshine in the Findhorn Valley, Scotland, after Arctic winds brought a heavy frost and snow showers. The Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for most of Scotland and northern England for wind and ice.

Strong winds with gusts of 70mph will batter northern parts of England, and higher ground in Scotland could be blanketed in up to 5cm (2in) of snow.

Arctic winds brought a heavy frost and light snow showers. Traffic Scotland warned of icy conditions across Grampian, Dumfries and Galloway, Strathclyde, the Highlands and the Western Isles. (Rex Features)

The mercury struggled to get above zero as Scotland experienced the beginning of a cold snap expected to last two weeks. (Rex Features)

Snow sprinkled the trees, and according to weather forecasts there is more to come with the whole of the country bracing itself for freezing conditions. (Rex Features)

Snow covered bracken frond, Findhorn Valley, Scotland as Britain welcomed the first snow of the winter. (Rex Features)

Fallen Autumn leaves covered in morning frost in the city of Stirling. (PA)

As the snow began to melt, in Glasgow and Edinburgh the temperature stood at -1C (30.2F) at 6am and 0C (32F) in Aberdeen. (Rex Features)

Motorists were warned of icy conditions across Scotland and the North East as plummeting temperatures and wintry showers affected roads. (Rex Features)

Fresh snow in birch woodland in autumn, Findhorn Valley, Scotland. (Rex Features)

The sun shone through the trees as gale force winds are expected on the West coast of Scotland. (Rex Features)

Sheep stood in the hills above Glenarm in Co Antrim, as the first snowfall of the season covered parts of the province.

Photographer Mark Hamblin snapped these wintery scenes in Scotland where a fresh covering of snow sparkled in the winter sunshine in the Findhorn Valley, Inverness-shire. (Rex Features)

In Grampian, police reported that light snow and low temperatures had affected roads in Moray, Buchan, Kincardine, Garioch and Aberdeen. Tyndrum in the Highlands was the coldest recorded place in Scotland at -5C (23F).

This computer 'virus' scam will cost you big
lovemoney.com – Fri, Feb 8, 2013 15:52 GMT

My phone rings. It's a cheap internet call from India. But it's not a so-called “consumer survey”. Instead, it's “Alex Carter”. And he is serious – he works for an information technology support team.
He warns me my computer is full of harmful viruses and that the processor has “already almost stopped working.” Even worse, my “percentage error levels” have hit 85. And how does he know all this?
He's a “Microsoft Certified” engineer who has discovered these “facts” because he has scanned my machine via my wireless modem.
Knowing this to be a scam but pretending to be worried, I ask what to do. “I can provide free assistance. But I am a technician, not a magician so I don't know what my colleagues will offer.” As I had to catch a train, I told Alex to call back the next morning.
To my amazement, he did. He told me he worked for a firm called British IT Solutions which was the “only company in the UK helping Microsoft.” He was getting “very harmful internet reports” from my number. The computer was turned off.
“How do you know?” The reply came: “The computer is linked to the router, and the router is linked to the phone line.” This is, of course, a statement of fact and not an explanation.
“Some processors have already stopped working and the computer is sending signals to Microsoft Global Services of many errors,” he informed me.
I enquired how I could fix the problem as I knew “processor failures and viruses were very harmful”.
Assuring me that this was not a sales call, Alex told me to turn my computer on. I did not so I asked again about Microsoft. “The computer sends errors to Microsoft and it passes them on to us as we are part of a certified tech team. You don't need to pay a single penny and we'll show how to delete the errors, warnings, and other problems in my computer. It is my job to tell you about this.”

The lies get bigger

I then revealed that my computer does not run on Windows – it uses a variant of the Linux operating system called Ubuntu. He was confused for a second but not put off. Alex had been trained with a just about plausible, although false, line for those with Apple or other operating systems.

“Because you are running Linux, all internet companies are connected to the global server run by Microsoft which sends us error messages.”

Telling him my machine was working perfectly did not deter him either. “It may appear fine at the moment, but errors and warnings create a problem slowly, then come faster and when they multiply. After a few months your computer will crash and you will lose all your data.”

Scary stuff but a nasty cocktail of unmitigated rubbish and blatant lies.

I finally asked about the firm's website. He said it was part of RedHat.com.

Another outright and outrageous lie. Just as there is absolutely no link between this cold caller in India and Microsoft (whose website has a disclaimer), there is also no connection between the scam firm which phoned me and Red Hat, a US software support company which specialises in Linux applications. Red Hat, a US quoted company worth around $11billion, has told me that using its name in this way is not just confusing, it is criminal. There appears to be no trace of British IT Solutions.

What would have happened

Had I been a nervous person or a computer novice, it would have been all too easy to fall for this long running scam which has resurfaced after a quiet year or two. The perpetrators hope that the interval means we have forgotten the previous warnings.

And here's what would have happened. I would likely have been asked to download remote access software which would have allowed Alex's friends to control my machine from India. They would then have downloaded malware and then charged me up to £185 (plus £100 annual fee) to remove it.

Either way, it's big bucks for them and even if Alex only fooled one person a day, he will have earned his employers far more than he costs.

This call was simply computer garbage. The sooner these people are sent to prison the better – sadly vulnerable people fall for their nonsense every day.