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Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 January 2013

Winter Isn't Winter Without Snow


The heavy snowfall from Friday night has now almost gone as the temperature suddenly shoots up. The park is now just a mass of puddles and mud. Not pleasant but the dogs love it.

In the afternoon we go to visit an old work friend of L’s who has unfortunately been unwell. Over there at Calverton they seem to be holding onto the snow better than we are but even that will be gone soon.

I like the snow, winter isn't winter without snow. There is nothing worse than dark, wet, winter days. Snow makes everything much pretty and more exciting.

We find out why we couldn’t get tickets for ‘Chasing Ice’ yesterday. It’s being screen in the Lounge at Broadway which only holds 12. So it’s certainly going to be cosy. We didn’t actually know they had a ‘Lounge’ and have to be told where it is. It’s all comfy settees and the like, so at least if the film isn’t any good, nodding off will be a real pleasure.

‘Chasing Ice’ is a documentary about a chap called James Balog and his Extreme Ice Survey team who go out to photograph the melting glaciers by using automatic cameras, set to take shots over a long period of time. The resulting time lapse scenes are as equally impressive as they are shocking, showing the rapid retreat of the glaciers.

The film does preach a bit about climate change and Balog has an obsession to document it. That as well as a passion for photography and a dodgy knee. He has my sympathy there. It’s a knee on which he’s had several operations. He ignores his physio too and we see him out on the ice on his crutches at one point. This along with the problems they had setting up the cameras in the harsh environments of Greenland, Alaska and Canada, make the film more interesting for me.

I suppose on the climate change front the film never really gets to grips with the issue, other than providing irrefutable photographic evidence that it exists but doesn’t prove that it is man-made. While, if it is, they don’t suggest anything to us that we can do about it. Cracking photography though.
 (Sunday 27th January)

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Simple Maths

It’s dropped cold again, -3C this morning. So I decline to cycle or run but I do take my running kit with the intention of running some of the way home.

Talking of cold. Did you see this?

Apparently the average temperature of British houses is 17.5C. Which is basically what ours is, 17-18C. So I’m vindicated, despite the protest movement at home. The chief scientific adviser at the Department of Energy and Climate Change goes further; his normal thermostat setting at home is 13C! Wow. I’m in awe of the guy. I wonder how he squares that with his wife and daughter? He’s obviously a 1970’s sort of guy, back then apparently the average house temperature was a mere 12C. I always said that was a good decade.



The chief curator of the Royal Historic Palaces, whoever she is, says of her grandmother, ‘she wouldn't sleep in a heated bedroom, and would always have a window open’. Wow. Another hero. Too right granny, I always used to sleep with a window open too.

It’s a sweltering 6C by the time I leave work and I set off on a run. I’m feeling much better than I have been, 90-something-%. L isn’t impressed with that statistic but I thought I’d under promise and over deliver, as they say, on the percentage front.

I end up running nearly 9 miles which is further than I intended but it wasn’t my fault, the buses all seemed to be running late. Although they’ve taken all the live times down off the bus stops which doesn’t help, but I wasn’t stopping until I saw one.

Derby are playing again tonight and in the first half Middlesbrough seem to do all they can to make us look good, which is no mean feat, and even give us a penalty, which we actually score. Doesn’t last though, we still lose 2-1 to an own goal and a heavily deflected shot. Some simple maths. Not playing well + not getting any luck = doomed.

Meanwhile I’m out for a pizza with a friend and later in the pub where, OMG, Snecklifter. Just the thing if you’re not-quite-100%.

L’s at her book club tonight and, you have to laugh, her new book to read is by my ex-favourite author Ian McEwan. His ‘comedy’ Solar.



Question is, do I read it in sympathy with her?

(Tuesday 8th March)