Category: uk

It never was the pineapple juice

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It’s been a couple of years since this headline amazed the world:

Amazed us because I think it’s fair to say that pineapple juice was the odds-on favourite to be the cause of the Cowdenbeath mystery puddle.

Well. At that time, at least.

Of course, that was quickly proven not to be the case at all, and we were all left feeling rather foolish and embarrassed for ever thinking that it was. Personally speaking, I learnt a lot from the whole episode, and I certainly won’t be rushing to pin the blame for unexpectedly appearing small pools of liquid on tropical juices in future.
And that was a lesson that was recently backed up by the infamous Guava Pond incident in Caledon.

Never again.

Hotter days are getting hotter, quicker

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More evidence of climate change, this time in North West Europe, where extremely hot days are getting hotter more quickly than hot days are getting hotter. And we’re already well aware that the hot days are getting hotter.

Now work from the University of Oxford suggests that extremely hot days are getting hotter faster than hot days are getting hotter. More than twice as fast, in fact.

This graph and the news that goes with it will come as little surprise to those who read this post last year. There was a similar graph there:

…with that mental little red dot top right, showing just how extreme the extremely hot days were in Sheffield last July.

And it’s all Spain’s fault. Well, when isn’t it?

Because Spain is warming faster than North-West Europe, this means that air carried in from this region is ever more extreme relative to the ambient air in North-West Europe. The hottest days of 2022, for instance, were driven by a plume of hot air carried north from Spain.

I don’t have any answers for this trend. I’m just here pointing out that it’s yet more evidence that these sort of trends exist. Being aware of this is a good first step in either doing something or nothing about it. The study’s author says:

‘These findings underline the fact that the UK and neighbouring countries are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and that last year’s heatwave was not a fluke. Policy makers urgently need to adapt their infrastructure and health systems to cope with the impacts of higher temperatures.’

Ah, yes. Let’s get the politicians to do something about it.

That’ll work.

Of course, there will be some people who will read this and go “pfft” or make some such noise, because they don’t believe that climate change exists. They don’t need to come and talk to me. They need to talk to someone on their own level of expertise, like the guys in Oxford who are presenting these data, because obviously, they are also experts in recording and analysing near earth temperatures over north-western Europe for the past 60 years.

That’s why they are all also physical scientists at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Done with Wrexham

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Well done Wrexham on promotion to League Two from the National League.

Promotion is great. I know.

What’s less good is the weird wall-to-wall media coverage of your promotion. Because, let’s face it, while it’s big for you – you can only beat who is put in front of you – I’m no way belittling it when I say that it’s not actually that big a deal for the rest of the world.

Stockport County and Sutton United didn’t have the national broadcaster sharing live images of their promotion parades when they achieved similar feats in recent years. But then they didn’t have a genial, Hollywood film star as their co-owner, did they? And that’s the difficult bit for Wrexham fans to accept: it’s really not about their rather mediocre team. No-one actually cares about the football. It’s all about Ryan Reynolds.

And I’m sure he’s a lovely guy, and the work he’s done at money he’s put into the club is amazing. But they’ve won the National League, not the Champions League. One wonders how far down the fawning media would be prepared to go, had he taken over an even lower league club. Would we still have cameras there for each and every game if he’d plumped for Walton and Hersham in the Isthmian League Division One South Central, for example?

Sadly, probably.

I thought that I was alone in feeling this way about Wrexham. I thought that maybe I was seeing more about them because we have recent history when we knocked them out of the FA Cup earlier this year in those rather bad tempered fourth round games. Maybe Google looked at all the Wrexham references on the Sheffield United pages that I was reading and thought I needed to see more. (I really didn’t.)

But apparently, not:

And it seems that they feel the same way that I do about all this:

There are some quotes on the link above from people who feel differently, but they’re from Wrexham fans, (one of whom even uses the word “bandwagon”), and who wouldn’t want to enjoy seeing pictures all over the press of their team celebrating?

I don’t think that English football (yes, I know they’re Welsh, but…) needs that sort of celebrity nonsense. Save it for the MLS and the Saudi Leagues. And make our football leagues all about the football rather than the non-footballing personalities in the backroom.

I do understand that this isn’t going away any time soon, although I obviously wish it would.
But if you – like me – thought that you were the only person feeling this way about the inordinate number of undeserved column inches and TV news pixels being devoted to Wrexham Ryan, well, you’re really not.

Happy Birthday, Sean Lock

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And thank you for this lovely montage, Channel 4.

Sean Lock would have turned 60 today, but we’re not going to be maudlin about it. Instead we present to you this compilation of grumpy old man rants and anecdotes that demonstrate that Sean Lock was, in many ways, always a 60-year-old man. Happy birthday to you, sir.

Yep:

I’m not sure whether I’m in love, or the flue’s blocked.

Much missed.

and happy birthday, Stu…

I told you they were good

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I was listening to 6Music yesterday, and they had an interview with Alex Moore from The Lathums. Nice guy. Very down to earth. Very honest. Very humble. Lovely.

And then the presenter just casually dropped into the conversation that their album From Nothing To A Little Bit More was sitting pretty at No.1 in the album charts.

The only way that this news could be any better is if it was 20 years ago and anyone cared.

But seriously, if you are in the business to make music and sell records, then this is clearly a huge vote of confidence in your ability, and I’m here for it.

Go listen.

Thank you, Frankie