Sun stats

Another lovely day here today and the forecast looks set for more lovely sunny days in the week ahead:

Those temperatures aren’t anything to email home about, but it’s nice enough and, as Mrs 6000 pointed out, it’s hardly summer, is it? Which it absolutely isn’t, no. That would only start on the 1st or the 21st of December, depending upon which system you’re using.

But we shouldn’t be complaining, especially when looking back over at the UK. This image has been doing the rounds over the last 24 hours, indicating the number of hours of sunshine around the UK, the Isle of Man and Ireland over the first 7 (seven) days of November.

Ouch. Eina. My fok. Goodness gracious.

Bearing in mind that London is sitting on an average of about 9 hours 20 minutes of daylight each day, they could have had over 65 hours of sunshine. They got 2.
The Isle of Man – averaging just over 9 hours of daylight last week – got not a single hour.

In seven whole days!

Aberdeen was the big (and rather unlikely) winner. 8¾ hours of daylight each day, and a whole 13 hours of sunshine in seven days. That’s 21% of their daylight as sunshine. Incredible. Their local Burns Unit must be bursting at the seams, just like it is in late January each year.

We made hay (not literally) while the sun shone today, with the Boy Wonder driving himself and his friends down to Agulhas for a long weekend, and LM 6000, having recovered from her singing last night, riding a horse over some big sticks, rather amazingly.

But now it’s time to sit back with a glass of local red, and catch up with the Youtube videos I haven’t had time to watch this week. I’ll be incredibly knowledgeable and a brilliant photographer in about an hour.

Just watch. Literally.

“This is geo-engineering”

Spoiler: It’s not.

But there are some loons out there who still believe that it might be. Like these two:

“Concerned Citizen” – if that is his real name – shares a 12 second video of Devon, UK, with the caption:

What part of this looks ******** normal to you?

Honestly, the only bit that looks a bit weird is the sunshine in October, but even in the UK, that can happen from time to time.

But he’s going on about the aircraft contrails in the sky (best place for them, by the way).

And as ScottFree – if that is his real name – adds:

First they gave us disease, next its famine. The West is clearly under attack by dark forces. These are not contrails, this is geo-engineering.

Either that or Devon finds itself right underneath the main trans-Atlantic route from Europe to the Americas. I wonder which it could be?

I guess the only sure fire way to know is to see what the geo-engineering boffins of the “dark forces” have geo-engineered for Devon. Tornadoes? Hurricanes? Hail? Locusts?

Ugh. It’s worse than that.

My god. It’s going to be vaguely mild and partly cloudy for the foreseeable future.

The absolute bastards! How could they?

I mean, if you did have the power to geo-engineer the weather everywhere, firstly, why would you do it over Devon, which is pretty, but is also pretty inconsequential?
And secondly, is that really the best that you can manage? A variation of two degrees and some sunny spells over a 8 day period? Is the apprentice in charge this week or something? Start with the basics and then maybe add a shower or two next Wednesday?

Honestly, sometimes it feels like these twitter people just make shit up because they’re morons.

Changing a light bulb

I don’t have vertigo. Or do I?

I am FINE with any sort of height, as long as I am attached to something secure. Equally, I am fine with looking at anyone else at any sort of height, as long as they are attached to something secure.

Remove the harness or the rope or whatever from this equation, and I am an instant mess.
Even if it is just a few metres. And while I can generally get my act together with a bit of clear thought and pure logic, it’s not a pleasant experience.

Still, harnesses abound below, and so I am fine with this video* (and I actually found it pretty interesting):

I do wonder what the idea of the helmets was at (famously) 123m up, but I suppose that any safety gear is better than none. But amazing to see a (seemingly) ordinary guy doing an extraordinary job.

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Well played, HIGNFY

Spotted online yesterday. It made me laugh.

We mentioned the AI vs Creative Industry problem earlier in the week, and obviously, it goes for music as well. Thankfully, I’ve not heard much AI-generated stuff (yet), and if it’s anything like the images and the videos, then I’m really not sure I want to.

As for Thom’s more recent stuff – hey – I like to be challenged occasionally, but actually, it’s really not that bad.

Where is Yeniköy?

It’s everywhere.

Here’s a map of the most popular places names for countries across Europe:

And it makes for some interesting* reading.

In the UK, it’s Sutton. Sutton means “One from the Southern Homestead”, and aside from the main Sutton just south of London, there are 12 others. But a total of 13 is nothing.

Numbers
43 Steinbachs in Germany.
97 Ivanivkas in Ukraine.
101 Oktyabrsklys in Russia (it means October).
And an incredible 155 Yeniköys in Turkiye.
Good luck with finding the right one on Google Maps. Or indeed, any map.

New Villages
Yeniköy translates as “New Village”, and a quick scoot across Eastern Europe will reveal that everything there seems to be a “New Village”. It’s the most popular place name in 8 other countries as well as Turkiye:
Novo Selo (HR), Satu Nou (RO), Nova Ves (CZ), Nowa Vies (PL), Nova Selo (BiH), Nova Selle (RKS), Novo Selo (SRB) and Neo Chori (GR)

Honourable mentions:
– 5 Castletowns in Ireland (1 in the Isle of Man, too). Literally a town with a castle in each case. No imagination whatsoever.
– 2 places called Nes in the Faroe Islands. They’re about as big as a postage stamp! How do you manage to get 2 places with the same name somewhere that small? Why risk any confusion? It’s no wonder there are so many missed dates there:

She said she’d meet me in the pub in Nes at 7pm.
But she never turned up.

– Loads of mountain-based stuff: 3 Monts in Belgium, 4 Bergs in Sweden, 3 Szolohegys in Hungary.
– 8 Nogueiras in Portugal. All in the far north, because it means “Walnut Tree” and that’s where the walnut trees grow. AND… Orahovo (x3) is the most popular place name in Montenegro. It also means “Walnut Tree” and check out the latitudes of those two places.

You couldn’t make it up. And I didn’t.
– Loads of Saints in Spain, France, Cyprus and Italy. Catholics, ne?
– 3 Erpeldanges in Luxembourg. No idea what it means, but it’s a lovely word, almost certainly made up by Roald Dahl.

I’m now ready for whenever this info comes up in a quiz, but sadly, I also have this very strange feeling that it almost certainly won’t.