Sheaf Saint

Not one of the 'experts' you refer to ever claimed to know it all, as you suggest; they merely put forward some evidence to suggest that these scenarios might happen. As usual, their claims were wildly exaggerated and sensationalised by the national media. The term climate change is now preferred by many simply because it is very difficult to predict exactly how a warming of the planet will affect the climate in different regions. The term global warming refers to an increase in the global mean surface temperature (GMST) and that this is increasing there is absolutely no doubt. The DM seem to have finally got something climate-related right for once, because data taken from ice cores show that the rate of increase since the beginning of the 20th century is approximately 10 times greater than at any point over the last half a million years. Because this rate of increase is unprecedented, trying to predict how it will affect regional climate and local weather systems is extremely difficult. For example, it is believed by many that the melting of the polar ice caps will have an adverse affect on the gulfstream, due to the increased amount of desalinated water sinking and disrupting the currents. Should this happen, as the planet warms, north-western Europe will likely see a decrease in average temperatures, as the gulfstream currents ensure that we currently have higher average temperatures than other locations at the same latitude (Without the gulfstream, Britain would have a climate more like that of Labrador). All of this is just an educated guess. Even the most sophisticated climate models are still only models and as such cannot be relied upon to give 100% accurate predictions. But one thing that is generally agreed by nearly all in the field of climate science is that warmer global temperatures will lead to more frequent extreme weather events, and the heatwaves that have struck North America over the last few years appear to show that this is already happening. This makes predicting long-range weather patterns even harder than they ever were before.

You have to laugh at the comments section on climate articles in the Daily Mail (really - you have to, otherwise you would cry!). I don't know anybody in real life that is quite as ill-informed and downright dumb as the people who comment on these articles, so where do they get them from? They all seem to be Americans who are convinced that the fact Al Gore has made a fortune from it is proof that AGW is a hoax.

I have recently been assigned an estate version of the new Astra, and I'm still getting used to the idea that it's a Vauxhall. I've always had a deep dislike of any Vauxhalls in the past, and the previous Astras were bloody awful things to drive, with a dashboard so cheap and plasticky that it looked like it came out of a Kinder egg. But the new ones are such a massive improvement in just about all areas. Good handling, decent build-quality, comfortable, economical, and a really good sound system. And that's all in just the basic model. It's probably the best of the three in terms of how much tax you will pay, seeing as it is the cheapest to buy and has really good fuel economy if you go for the 1.7 CDTi engine. I haven't driven either of the other two you mentioned, but the Focus looks really nice and will no doubt be of equal or slightly better build quality to the Astra, and the Golf will undoubtedly be a better car but you will pay for it through a higher tax code.

Went to see the new comedy from Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost The World's End the other night. Was nowhere near as funny as the two previous instalments in their jokingly-titled Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) but still a good laugh and worth watching.

I understand the situations where zero hour contracts are necessary. My partner for example works in community support with mental health patients, and is on a zero-hr contract. It makes perfect sense because her organisation really do not know when or for how long her services are required each week. The good thing is, in her case anyway, that if a service-user cancels the appointment with her at short notice, she still gets paid for however many hours it was agreed she would have been working with them. In such cases, I have no objection to such contracts as they are nothing new and tend to benefit both parties. However, where you have a company like Sports Direct essentially getting their entire workforce on 0-hr contracts, knowing full well that most of them will be doing full time hours anyway, it's just a cynical and sh*tty way of getting cheap labour and not offering the rights and benefits that full-time employees are supposed to receive.

If the government are really serious about protecting minors from inappropriate content, then they could make a start by looking at the music charts... http://rock.rapgenius.com/Robin-thicke-blurred-lines-lyrics#note-1609183 Songs have been banned from the charts for many different reasons over the years, but it seems we have now reached a point where nobody is the slightest bit bothered about a number one single which advocates brutal, violent anal sex.

Ah yes, Huawei - the Chinese company that was recently identified by the US government as a threat to its national security.

Good read that. There is an even more in-depth analysis and comment on it here... http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/uk-internet-censorship-considerations.html Essentially, what Cameron is asking us to do is voluntarily accept broad-ranging internet censorship that will not succeed in it's supposed aim of protecting children from sexually-explicit content, and will only serve to harm legitimate businesses and make it easier for the government to identify potential 'high-risk' targets for surveillance based on their filtering choices. Considering how the tories loved to berate Labour when they were in office for creating a nanny state, it is extremely hard to believe that the ultimate aim of this legislation is actually what it is being dressed up as, and if the UK population just rolls over and accepts this as law (which we always do) then we can kiss goodbye to the principle of free speech to which we are supposedly entitled.

Atoms for Peace. Took a couple of listens but the album has really grown on me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o90VsOopAws

http://www.livescience.com/38347-north-pole-ice-melt-lake.html

Done mate - £10 donation to a worthy cause. Best of luck with it. I did a 60-mile ride between Leeds and Sheffield a few years ago and was shockingly under-prepared for it. Needless to say, I will be undertaking a fair bit more training when I (hopefully) attempt the Trans-Pennine Trail coast-to-coast ride this autumn. I'll be doing it for Mind so I'll share my justgiving page when it's all confirmed.

You can always trust the Daily Mail to be right at the cutting edge with their exclusives eh?... http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?42252-To-boldly-go&highlight=boldly#.Ue5z643qlv4

Maybe it's just me but I fail to see how any of that fits with your description of 'race to the bottom'. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Could you elaborate a little on what you mean by 'race to the bottom'?

Gove in 'basing policies on flawed and discredited data' shocker... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/utterly-wrong-flawed-academics-deride-league-tables-that-guide-michael-goves-reforms-8720956.html

Not at this time, but I am getting some sketchy reports of ursine defecation in a forested area. More to follow....

I seem to remember an incident on that road many years ago where a Porsche driver was going so fast that when he crashed he managed to flip the car over the fence onto the railway line.

I bought it on the day of release and I saw him on the live tour in Sheffield back in May. I've tried and tried to like it but I just find it very disappointing compared to his earlier work. Too much attention to the finer details of the production and not enough emphasis on the bigger picture has resulted, with one exception (Cirrus), in a collection of cleverly-produced but instantly forgettable tracks that sadly are no more than the sum of their parts. Shame really.

I have just finished watching this series (still got the movie to watch yet) after reading a few posts about it on this thread previously. I'm not sure how but it completely crept under my radar before now. I find it a strange one really. In many ways it was very good, but it was also pretty poor and cheesy in a lot of ways as well. The biggest problem I think was that it was a science-fiction series but it was seriously lacking in any actual sciencey stuff. It was basically just a western-style show about some frontier criminals that happened to be set in space. It was also poorly researched from a writing point of view. Captain Reynolds and Zoe were supposedly veterans of a war, but during the actual fighting scenes they would normally just stand out in the open with wooden looks on their faces shooting at people. It was almost as bad as the A-team was for military realism. I still don't get why the preacher was included. He showed up wanting a ticket to nowhere in the first episode and didn't make a single noteworthy contribution to the script that I can remember. He may as well not have been there at all. And the whole sexual tension thing between Mal/Inara and Simon/Caylee was very badly written and executed by the actors as well I thought. For me the only really good, believable character was Jayne. The final episode was a massive let-down. I guess they expected to get another series so nothing really got resolved and it just fizzled out. BUT... despite all the above comments making it appear I hated it, I actually really enjoyed watching it

I have just finished watching this series (still got the movie to watch yet) after reading a few posts about it on this thread previously. I'm not sure how but it completely crept under my radar before now. I find it a strange one really. In many ways it was very good, but it was also pretty poor and cheesy in a lot of ways as well. The biggest problem I think was that it was a science-fiction series but it was seriously lacking in any actual sciencey stuff. It was basically just a western-style show about some frontier criminals that happened to be set in space. It was also poorly researched from a writing point of view. Captain Reynolds and Zoe were supposedly veterans of a war, but during the actual fighting scenes they would normally just stand out in the open with wooden looks on their faces shooting at people. It was almost as bad as the A-team was for military realism. I still don't get why the preacher was included. He showed up wanting a ticket to nowhere in the first episode and didn't make a single noteworthy contribution to the script that I can remember. He may as well not have been there at all. And the whole sexual tension thing between Mal/Inara and Simon/Caylee was very badly written and executed by the actors as well I thought. For me the only really good, believable character was Jayne. The final episode was a massive let-down. I guess they expected to get another series so nothing really got resolved and it just fizzled out. BUT... despite all the above comments making it appear I hated it, I actually really enjoyed watching it

I'll be seeing them at Beat Herder festival this coming weekend. I wasn't too bothered when I heard they had been announced to play, but following the huge praise they have been getting from their Glasonbury performance, I reckon I might pop along and watch them.

Quantic - The 5th Exotic Orbital - In-Sides Portishead - Dummy Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun Bonobo - Days to Come

Thanks for bringing this to my attention Charlie, I really must watch this. I was listening recently to Chris Tarrant talking on R4 about when he worked with Kenny, and how he believes him to be the greatest radio presenter who ever lived. Alas I am too young to remember him on the radio but I do have great memories of his TV series from my childhood, although I was probably too young to appreciate a lot of the humour at the time. Like so many troubled geniuses, he was taken from us far too young.