St Landrew

Not quite true:

Holy Rood..?

Well thank you for that considered response WSS. The Greek Islands would be my choice. But can you get a Greek family to move..? Not if they are sane..!

There is such a thing as the Earth Energy [or Heat] Budget. If more sunlight is not reflected or radiated back into space, then that budget increases. Increased pollutents, as in particulates and chemicals, dust and clouds contain the heat by impeding absorbed radiated heat from mainly land masses. Ice, oceans and seas reflect that sunlight back into space. Ice is the major reflector, having a high Albedo score: http://www.carbon-info.org/carboninfo_029.htm But due to several climactic, Earth driven, human influenced, factors, polar and land based ice is melting at increasing rates. This means sea level rises and lower altitudes for the remaining ice. Therefore it melts even quicker. Therefore there is less ice to reflect the sunlight back. Therefore..., well you get the idea. This is working as an isolated positive feedback system, and positive feedback systems don't keep themselves in check. Thankfully, this system isn't isolated; it relates and interacts with other Earth systems, that help to power it and keep it in check as well. Which brings me to our lousy weather. Usually, the weather patterns we are currently experiencing are much further to the north. But we are getting the weather of north of the Shetland Isles. Why is this..? Well, try as I might, I can find no information that nails this down. Last year's lousy summer was blamed on the Jetstream being situated at a much lower latitude than it should be, and this would hold good for this year too as the weather patterns are near identical. But why is the Jetstream so low..? Well this is what I'm trying to track real evidence for and I can't find it. There is a bit of evidence for La Nina [not El Nino], but I don't buy it at present for various reasons. So at the moment I'm falling back on my old knowledge, but it is very fragmented, and the theories are getting on a bit, and I can't piece the interactions of the systems together, let alone explain them. Polar ice is flowing into the polar seas and IMO could be majorly influencing the weather patterns, and indirectly, possibly causing both the Jetstreams that circle the planet to move from their accustomed latitudes. At the moment I can't quite see the connection. But it could be why the weather is so lousy. My weak subject was always global meteorology. Perhaps someone else can look it up. Here's an easy guide that might give an understanding: http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/home.rxml Anyway, what it all means is... that if it is locally colder than normal here, then it's locally hotter than normal elsewhere. The Heat Budget has to be settled somehow.

Saw her uneven bars routine. It was immense. She's the World Champion too.

Yes, but who gives a toss..? There's little competition, and Saints aren't there anyway.

Ah, I stand corrected. Tbh, I think the weather is a lot gloomier. I don't think next year is going to be any better based on some recent serious cross reading and what I already know about weather and climactic systems. Hope I'm wrong. Don't think so though.

Me too. My living-on-a-sailing-boat-off-the-Greek-Islands idea gets better and better.

Don't know, is it..? I thought 3 months of economic reduction was recession behaviour. I understand Germany and France might be in recession, but the UK and Spanish economies are still just about growing. Credit Crunch is a buzz phrase, but it describes the hardening up of financial institutions attitudes towards giving credit and loans.

The rest of the summer will be a wash out as the weather patterns that should be around at this stage of the summer are simply not in place. There will be the odd day of good weather, here and there, but if anyone is looking for a good spell of hot weather, with no interruptions of rain, that they can plan something with - forget it. Honestly, if there was any potential really good weather around the corner, I'd be optimistic. I'm more optimistic with Saints and their promotion prospects. Sorry, once again.

Because Climate Change is a more accurate nomemclature than Global Warming, which is being mistakenly believed to be something to do with having hotter local temperatures. However, Climate Change is inaccurate as well. Human Influenced Climate Change would be a bit better, but that's a bit of a mouthful. Climate change occurs whether mankind is on the planet or not, so we need a better name for the process we are experiencing. Unfortunately, you can have Global Warming, and yet have locally cooler or unseasonal temperatures. Sorry. Believe me, I'm as p!ssed off about it as the next person.

Of course, he was costing us too much to stay, and the other adminstration were the people who bought his services. But he was a young player who was a leading addition to the squad.

What was the point of signing him in the first place..? What a screw up..!

I find little wrong in people eating noisy food [crisps, apples, etc..], as it is almost impossible to eat them quietly. But my hackles do rise when I hear that chamming noise of someone chewing with their mouth open, and/or when I accidentally get a view of the food that's moving around in the mouth. Yuck. Why don't they just go elsewhere to eat..?

What annoys me most is the almost complete lack of attention our other runners received during the race. One finished in 6th place, and the other was pushed over and apparently cracked a rib with grazing all over her shoulder and back. Has anyone been able to confirm she cracked her rib..? I'm not sure, but if Radcliffe had sneezed, we'd have known just when and where. That's not her fault, it's our media's infatuation. For the record, the other GB runners were: Mara Yamauchi [6th], and Liz Yelling [injured].

Must admit that on one of my computers, which I'm currently experimenting with because it has a dodgy graphics card, there is no protection at all beyond my router's hardware firewall, and I haven't had a single viral problem with it, when I buzz about on the net. The graphics card, on the other hand...

Just flicked channels to catch Ray Stubbs asking his pundits if there is any chance of any team breaking into the Big Four. Their verdict..? Officially NO CHANCE..! Therefore: Officially MORE YAWNING..!

BTW, don't make the mistake that what is Force 6 at sea is going to be Force 6 on land. All those land undulations, trees, buildings, and whatnot get in the way. At sea there's nothing to dissipate the wind. In fact, the sea state can be much worse if the wind is against the tide. So an F6 at sea maybe only F2-3 on land.

Shame I didn't see this at the time. I could have pointed you to the Bramble Bank data sender: http://www.bramblemet.co.uk/(ucy1wiy02bwgvw45ceugkk45)/Default.shtm Click on more details, in the main window, and you'll find that indeed it was gusting to F6 today [sunday afternoon]. If the leaves are being stirred in your back garden, it could be blwoing a gale out in the Solent. Force 6 isn't actually a gale though. It's officially just a strong breeze. It's a bit of fun on a sailing boat in the Solent, as it is so shallow, and therefore choppy water. Bit of a bugger in a little fishing boat though, I'll bet. Out in open water, it's no big thing, except in the same size fishing boat, I'll bet. You were probably well out of it. http://www.zetnet.co.uk/sigs/weather/Met_Codes/beaufort.htm

A new season in the Premiership featuring the other matches. I can hardly.......... keep my eyes open.

Although it might not be immediately obvious, when you get the option to OPEN or SAVE a download, always save it and install from the saved download, unless you are 100% sure you'll never need to download it ever again. It almost always can always be updated. And if it momentarily can't, at least you have the core program immediately on hand, doing a far better job than no program at all.

Not a bad race today. Good to see some people finishing higher than usual. It was all about tyres and Casey Stoner though. but for different reasons, Stoner fell off of his Bridgestone shod Ducati, while trying to put distance between himself and The Doctor, also on Bridgestones. But many of the field were on Michelins, and they went backwards fast. The highest placed Michelin rider was in 9th place - not good for competition. JT beat his teammate, but they were miles behind. Even Melandri took his tortoise Ducati into a decent finish. He was on Bridgestones too. 1. Valentino Rossi/Yamaha 2. Tony Elias/Ducati 3. Loris Capirossi/Suzuki Read this BBC report. Obviously someone doesn't even watch MotoGP when they write their reports - spot the error before they bother to correct it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/motorbikes/7566634.stm For those that don't know, Stoner did finish his last race at Laguna Seca, after falling off, and in second place too. That's a very clever DNF. EDIT: They corrected it. Wish I'd copied and pasted the original now.

JT must be well teed off with his Yamaha as he just about managed to fall off in the wet as he braked for a corner, during qualifying. His bike had the audacity to stay perfectly upright as it went into the gravel. Good camera shot of JT waving his Yamaha off as if to say, good riddance.

The second half of the season gets underway with the Czech Grand Prix. Stoner has overcome his annoyance that Rossi beat him in the last race, and gone into pole position, with Rossi just behind. Apparently they're both a bit ill too. John Hopkins returned after a bad injury and operation to bring the normally slow Kawasaki into third on the grid. Yes, it's on BBC2 tomorrow [sunday] at 12.45pm. Amazing that it's on a main channel really, considering the Olympics has been wall-to-wall. Just where are they going to put Eastenders..? And who gives a f*** anyway..? 1. Stoner 2. Rossi 3. Hopkins.

Van Morrison on BBC2 - The BBC4 Sessions. Still not sure after all these years whether I like his music or whether I think he's a jumped up p!ss taker. I have a couple of his old albums too, so that would suggest I'm confused, but erring on the positive.