Tag: comments

Weather news from afar

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While we are having a rather wet and windy day in Cape Town, according to Sky News it seems that the UK is bracing itself for equally nasty weather over the days ahead.

Gale force winds and heavy rain are forecast to lash many parts of the country today as stormy conditions, usually only experienced in the autumn and winter, hit the UK.
The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning for south-west England from early afternoon, with gusts of up to 70mph expected on exposed coasts and headlands in Devon and Cornwall.
Through tonight and Friday the centre of the storm will move slowly north east to south Wales and many parts of southern England as well as the South West, again with a risk of gales. Many places could see gusts of between 55 and 65mph, while as far north as Northumberland could be hit by the Atlantic storm.
Heavy rain is also due to fall over much of England over the next 48 hours.

Sounds divine. Glad I’m not headed there anytime soon.

Wait. What?

I’m no fan of seeing summers ruined, but some of the comments did make me smile:

Here’s coronakid with his/her take on it:

Nothing new here,the seasons are changing and have been over time.

The seasons are changing? Really? Hoodathunkit?
But you’re right – it seems like they’ve been doing that forever.

Strega weighs in with:

I put all this down to the volcano erupting in Iceland last year. Unusually hot summer but when all the hot air rises and cools the ash becomes cold and rain and wind occur.

That’ll be last year as in 2010, presumably? Did you perhaps fall asleep and miss 2011 completely?
And look, I’m no meteorologist, but I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations and I can find completely no scientific evidence that cold ash causes rain and wind to occur. I think you’re talking utter pants.

But what does the so called scientific world know anyway?
Hit us with it, Joseph Bennett:

The globel warming lot will no dought blame it on us again but no one in the so called scientific world have never thought of the positions of the planets in the last few years they have been closer to us which will affect our planet

Where. To. Begin.

Well, for starters, I’m pretty sure that no astronomers (part of the so called scientific world last time I checked) have never thought of the positions of the planets in the last few years. That’s their job and I can’t believe that they’d be so remiss as to not not never think of the positions of the planets in the last few years. That’s an awfully long time span not to do your job for.

But, that aside, I’m also struggling with the link between the proximity (noted or not by the so call scientific world) of the planets and a bit of wind and rain sweeping across southern England. Could they not find somewhere else to make it happen? Or maybe even do something a little more significant? Massive galactic explosions? Alien invasion?
Come now, if they’re going to make all the effort of being closer to us, I’d expect to see something a bit more spectacular than some gusty drizzle in Exeter.

Sky News comments could just be the new Southern Suburbs Tatler…

Brolly issue

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Amazing. Here I am wondering what to blog about today and then it drops into my lap onto my screen, courtesy of News24 commenter Krolie, who took full advantage of an article on the wintery weather (which missed Cape Town almost completely) to vent his or her spleen over a long-standing issue which has clearly caused a lot of pent up frustration:

For the past 20 years I each year bought an umbrella in the hope that THIS time it will do what it is supposed to, but alas, if you exit the door and there is something just stronger than a breeze, your umbrella takes another shape whipping the other way round and well, your next best hope is for a bit of water to use this useless object as a boat of sorts.
Anybody else find an umbrella pretty useless in the WC in the middle of winter? CT is well known for people hugging lampposts, even grabbing towards the closest human zipping past you as if hell bent to win a marthon.
Yip, even your rainjacket ends up not being so protective as it is renowned to do – whipping up and down and all over the place, including the clothes you’re wearing underneath. You might as well put your clothes in a packet, tie it to your body and streak down Adderley Steet, because wet you will be to the skin, no matter what you do. At least you’t hopefully have some dry clothes at the end of your “flight”.

Just wondering what the use is of a umbrella/brolly really is in this kind of weather…

Is Krolie mad? Einstein thinks so:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

When May comes around, and Krolie heads for the local umbrella shop, is there not some small hint, some glimmer of a memory that when s/he is doing is utterly pointless and has been proven so on many separate occasions over the previous two decades?

I have to say too, that it appears some degree of artistic licence has been employed here. I have never hugged a lamppost in Cape Town – there are always too many posters on them for one’s arms to get a firm grip – nor have I ever grabbed the closest human to me. The latter is an extremely dangerous means of protecting one’s self from the rain anyway. South Africans know how to fight off muggers and you’re more than likely to find yourself lying in a pool of blood, not water, with your brolly stuck somewhere where the sun don’t shine (that’s PE this week).

So people, do not buy an umbrella in the misguided hope it will keep you dry in Cape Town’s wind. And do not streak down Adderley Street. It’s not clever, and in these sort of meteorological conditions, it certainly won’t be big either.

Statpr0n and three big moments

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I was flicking through some WordPress plugins and seeing what they could do for 6000 miles…when I realised that there are three fairly large moments rapidly approaching. And, quite conceivably, they could all arrive on the same day. Although I will not be making any particular effort to ensure that they do. Honest.

Firstly – on January 30th, I will complete my 365th day of consecutive posts. I got the post-a-day idea from the inimitable Brian Micklethwait and I thought I’d see how it went in February. It went well and the rest is, as they say, history. Or soon will be, anyway.
I’ve had to throw the odd quota photo in here and there to keep things going, and – mainly due to intercontinental travel – I have even pre-written a couple of entries, but generally, you’ve had one or more quality posts each day.
It’s been hard work, really hard, sometimes, but readership is up, subscriptions are up and I’ve actually enjoyed the challenge.
Will I continue? I haven’t decided just yet, but it seems likely. Watch this space on 31st January.
And before and after as well, obviously

The second big thing is that I am “just” 10,000 words short of 200,000 words on 6000 miles… blog posts. That’s a whole lot of words and a whole lot of posts considering I (apparently) average just over 300 words per post. One memorable effort didn’t even have any words at all. That must have dragged the average down a bit.  

The last bit of news is that – at an average 8 comments per post – I am almost up to 5,000 genuine (i.e.ham, not spam) comments. This blog would still exist without comments and commenters, but it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting and fun. Posts about the 2009 general election in South Africa were particularly well commented upon, as is any post about the contentious issues in local politics. Quota photos generally don’t get comments, nor do admin posts; those about religion do and that one about The Killers concert really got people going.

I’m going to make an effort to reward my 5,000th comment in some way.
Not sure how yet, but I’ll do it.
And because of all the spam that Akismet sifts out for me, no-one will know who or when it is, save for myself and The Guru. And thus, he’s not allowed to enter. Sorry, The Guru – it just wouldn’t be fair.

This post is 422 words long and is being filed under admin.
All of which means that no-one will actually have read this far.