"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"

It’s becoming increasing obvious that the weather just isn’t what it used to be. For instance, last October was incredibly warm: for the time of year, temperatures should have been around 13C. In fact they rose to 21C on occasion. I was in New York in early November, & had been warned that the weather can be extremely cold around that time of year. As it was, the weather was sunny & almost Spring-like. On our last evening, it was even warm enough to eat outside.

There really has been some weird weather in recent years. In 2002, floods swept across large parts of Europe – including Britain – causing fatalities, disrupting lives & costing insurance companies billions. Back in 2004 a whole Cornish village (Boscastle) was almost completely destroyed by flash floods. We are experiencing some strange weather right now; quite apart from the fact that it’s extremely mild, it’s been very windy. This month, gale force winds across the country have caused a significant number of casualties & fatalities; gusts of up to 90 mph uprooted trees, brought down power lines, tore roofs off, & left whole areas of the country without electricity.

As I say, it’s hard to ignore. My tendency is to say that it’s down to ‘global warming’, though if anyone were to ask me what that actually means, I’m a bit lost. I mutter something about ‘the ozone layer’, ‘carbon footprints’, & ‘greenhouse gases’. If pushed I will mention ‘pollution’, ‘fossil fuels’ & ‘carbon dioxide’, then hastily change the subject before anyone notices that I really haven’t got a clue.

So I thought I’d inform myself. Evidently, global warming (or climate change) is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide and other polluting gases in our atmosphere. The gases trap heat by forming a blanket around the Earth - like the glass of a greenhouse (hence the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ I hear so much about). These gases stay in the atmosphere for many years &, as they build up, the planet’s temperature rises. This clears up what ‘global warming’ is, & what ‘greenhouse gases’ are.

It turns out that ‘fossil fuels’ are coal, oil & gas, & it is the burning of these that cause the ‘greenhouse gases’ (the other main cause being land clearing, such as the wholesale destruction of rainforests for cash crops).

The Hadley Centre for climate prediction & reseach has discovered that Britain has become twice as stormy as it was 50 years ago, apparently due to pressure changes on the atmosphere, which they say can be attributed to climate change. Though the researchers allow that an amount of climate change is inevitable with or without human contribution, they say that the severity of the change “is significantly larger than explicable by natural variation, and must be man-made climate change”. A collaborative report between Britain, Canada & Australia into these trends found that the most intense weather conditions were to be found over Europe, especially Northern Europe – in particular the UK. The Wikipedia entry on climate change also suggests that the increase in global temperatures can cause such changes, (e.g. a rising sea level and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation); changes that may increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events ( floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and tornados).

This would seem to explain the weird weather we’ve been experiencing.

Seasons are altering as a result of all this. I’ve noticed myself over the past few years that both Autumn & Spring are changing; Autumn seems to arrive later, & Spring seems to be arriving earlier. Last year, some scientists proclaimed this to be “conclusive proof” of global warming. Whilst this may be good news for us humans, it’s not so good for the animal & insect kingdom. For example, if a bird that feeds on a specific insect that in turn relies on a specific plant for food, & any one of those responds to warming in a different way to the others, the whole system can break down.

Another word I’ve heard an awful lot about in connection with climate change is ‘Kyoto’ – I’ve used it myself, again in the hope that I’m not challenged, mainly because I have only the sketchiest notion of what it actually is. Having checked, I found out that it's a protocol drawn up by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It commits industrialised nations to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by around 5 % below their 1990 levels over the next decade.

So that sounds like a jolly good idea, then.

However, if and when the revised treaty takes effect in 2008, it will require all signatories – which includes the USA (who, incidentally, were the biggest polluter in 1990). Those who are skeptical of global warming, have stated that The Kyoto Protocol is a scheme either to slow the growth of the world’s industrial democracies, or to transfer wealth to developing countries as part of some kind of global socialist initiative. Frankly this seems about as paranoid as the whole ‘Reds under the bed’/House Un-American Activities Committee thing in the 40s & 50s, but there are certainly reasons why industrialised countries would dismiss global warming – specifically that halting CO2 emissions to the extent proposed by the Kyoto Protocol would seriously curb financial growth. Call me cynical, but my guess is that this is what’s really behind this theory.

To this end, large corporations have been working for many years to discredit global warming, claiming that the science used is inconclusive. Fake citizens’ groups & bogus scientific bodies have produced ‘reports’ detailing this. It was a calculated ploy to throw people off the scent & halting – or at least stalling – action on climate change, & it worked. Thankfully, these have pretty much been all universally discredited now.

There have been other, less obvious, casualties of climate change. Some retailers have suffered as a consequence of the recent unseasonal weather; for example, Moss Brothers issued a profits warning last Christmas in which they blamed the weather for the collapse in sales. This in turn has resulted in rumours of a take-over bid by Baugur, an Icelandic investor. All this occurred against the back-ground of a predicted rise in profit, leaving investors very confused indeed. Another company to suffer was Premier Foods, (the company behind Branston Pickle and Angel Delight), who blamed the recent spell of warm weather for loss in profits. In a statement they said that the mild weather had meant that Christmas trading had begun much later than usual. Robert Schofield, the group's chief executive, said:

"The warmer weather, which extended through to early December, has meant that Christmas trading has commenced later than expected, and the out-turn for the year is dependent on trading in the final two weeks of the year".

Many large investors have realised that the effects of climate change are very likely to present serious financial risks for the companies they have shares in. An initiative launched several years ago by the government aiming to build a realistic picture of the amount of carbon emissions by all the different companies (the Carbon Disclosure Project), presumably as an initial step towards reducing these emissions, has been signed up to by more than 225 top investment houses including Morgan Stanley & Goldman Sachs &. Companies themselves that have signed up include Tesco, BSkyB & Asda.

However, more than half of the top 500 global trading companies which expressed concern about climate change, had yet to implement a greenhouse gas reduction programme.

Projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggest that warming will increase more dramatically towards the end of the century unless serious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are brought in.

So now I feel that I can at least give a brief description of global warming if required. If I combine this with an earnest expression & some other big words, I could probably pass myself off as being quite knowledgeable. Depending on my audience, of course - clearly I wouldn't get away with it amongst green activists, but I do know far more than I did yesterday.

Slapstick!

I love comedy. I especially love it if it involves falling over, head-hitting, tripping over, or any other humiliation based humour. I just love seeing other people fall over - it makes me laugh more than anything else.

If, like today, I am around when someone falls over or bumps into something, my first reaction is to giggle. The incident in question involved a woman tripping over a curb & spilling her shopping all over the pavement. Someone helped her - which they managed to do without even the vaguest hint of a smile, suggesting they didn't find it amusing - & I had to walk on quickly so that no one noticed me trying not to laugh. It's very juvenile.

If, however, anyone laughs at me when I fall over/trip up/stub my toe/bang my head on something (which happens rather more than I would like), I take umbrage in a big way. I normally follow the incident with a very hard stare at whoever is around - daring them to laugh at their peril. If they DO laugh they will either be treated to a strop, or the silent treatment until such time that they realise the error of their way & apologise profusely for their insensitivity. Of course this never happens - & why should it? Accidents like that are funny - I know that really.

I find Accident & Emergency Departments in hospitals similarly humourous, with all the bandaged body parts & so on. One of my favourite comedy sketches is the Monty Python one where the Intensive Care patients are taken on outside exercises. I realise that none of this reflects very well on me.

I don't think I'm on my own, though - a bit of research shows that slapstick comedy has been around for centuries. Shakespeare used it in both his comedies & his non-comedy plays, e.g. the travelling Players employed by Hamlet were essentially knock-about clowns. Some theatre historians argue that slapstick comedy originated in the Middle Ages; beating the devil off stage was a regular feature in most religious plays.

Later, slapstick was used with great success in the movie industry - originally by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, & the Marx Brothers. It remains a major crowd-pleaser, today being employed by current Hollywood directors (such as the Farrelly brothers) & actors (such as Jim Carrey).

An article in the Times Online outlines a theory that the origins of laughter can be traced back 4M years. Evolutionary biologists have traced the origins of laughter back to before the evolution of mankind, with the apes stumbling around as they struggled to walk on two legs. According to the theory, when they saw a member of their group lose his footing they would laugh as a sign to each other that something was amiss, but nothing too serious. Matthew Gervais, the US evolutionary biologist who led this study, said: "Becoming bi-pedal means there was a greater chance of tripping & falling. Essentially the suggestion is that slapstick & humour evolved from that time. When we laugh at slapstick, we are laughing at the same things that amused our early ancestors. That's why we find them funny."

According to the study, the next basic elements of human behaviour that sparked laughter were flatulence and mild sexual mischief. Language appeared only 2m years after the first laugh, enabling people to combine laughter and words into numerous refinements, from amusement at a joke to sneering at a rival.

Gervais and his colleague David Sloan Wilson devised their theory after reviewing more than 100 studies of laughter covering isolated aspects such as psychology, archeology, history and neurology. The researchers believe that the forerunner of laughter was the panting noise made by apes and chimpanzees, often in response to tickling, which is believed by scientists to be a way of preserving harmonious relations in a family or other group.

"Witnessing another individual unexpectedly trip or slip (from an awkward bipedal gait?) while simultaneously recognising the non-seriousness of the mishap often elicits laughter in humans today," says the study, which appears this week in the Quarterly Review of Biology. "Such a mishap could have become a potent elicitor of laughter in early hominids as a result of Pliocene pressures for increased social play."

Whether or not this theory is true, it is certainly fair to say that slapstick will probably be around for a while yet.


Today's spam emails:

Have usurp my wrestinghouse

Hail soliloquy

To rockbound or resolve

In hammerhead he dissociate

Reality Bites

The annual debacle that is Celebrity Big Brother has just started on Channel 4 ... I have managed to resist watching this over past years, but made the mistake of watching the first episode, in which the 'celebrities' are wheeled into the Big Brother house in front of big crowds. The unwritten law governing reality TV shows states that: if you watch the first show your will is no longer your own. You will lose your ability to make any kind of sensible decision, which will be illustrated by the inability to make the sensible decision not to watch, and you are doomed to watch the whole sorry thing right through to the end.

Another 'rule' of reality TV shows is that you will discuss the housemates as though you know them, e.g.: "Did you see what ___ said to ______ last night?", "Oh my god I know, wasn't it awful - he's really sensitive about that, especially after what happened!!". It is media manipulation on a grand scale - against your better judgement, you will care about these people & feel their pain. You will develop 'favourites' & feel defensive on their behalf when other housemates are horrible to them. It's absurd, but I know I'll end up doing it. I've already 'bookmarked' the official website & checked the week's TV schedule to see whether any of the episodes clash with any of my regular programmes.

This years group of 'housemates' are typical in that they are either little-known Z-Listers, or they were famous about 20 years ago. I recognise approximately 6 of the 11 people, all of whom I recognise because they were in the public eye in the 70s & 80s ( my formative years). And frankly, they weren't exactly 'up there' back then. The woman off the Kenny Everett Show is in there - Cleo someone; one of the A Team actors is in there - Dirk something (Benedict?); Ken Russell - film director of 'Women In Love', 'Tommy', & long fur coat fame; Leo Sayer of You Make Me Feel Like Dancing fame; & Jermaine 'brother of Michael' Jackson.

Other than that there are a couple of refugees from manufactured pop bands (one of S Club 7 & one of Steps), footballer Teddy Sheringham's glamour model girlfriend, a journalist who 'tells it like it is' (code for 'reactionary old bigot') called Carole, & an incredibly beautiful Bollywood actress called Shilpa. There is also a 20 something rock-star wannabe called Donny Tourette (not his real name, I'm guessing), but it's been reported that he 'escaped' over the Big Brother wall last night rather than have to be a servant to Jade Goody (don't ask). I had never heard of him before Thursday night, but I am now counting down the minutes until I can learn all about it ...

45 minutes later ...

Well I am pleased to report that Donny DID in fact climb over the wall, with the help of 'H' from Steps. I for one was cheering him on, especially after they showed footage of Jade Goody, her boyfriend & her mum - each as vacuous as the other. The idea was that several of the housemates - including Donny - would be required to become servants to Miss Goody & her family. Frankly, his escape seemed like the only sensible response to the situation & I found myself nodding earnestly in agreement with Leo Sayer when he described him as a 'bloody good bloke'. I was really sad that he'd left, & felt my heart sink a little bit at his passing.

Which brings me back to the unwritten rules again, & I offer the following facts as evidence:

Point 1: Leo Sayer only met this Donny bloke 3 days ago, so any kind of personality assessment will necessarily be of limited accuracy.

Point 2: I haven't met him AT ALL, so my agreement with his assessment is not based on any kind of reality.

Point 3: He is essentially a total stranger who clearly fancies himself as the next Pete Doherty/Sid Vicious/whoever, & has had a little bit of media attention for being involved with Peaches Geldof. He may or may not be talented - he's only about 22 I think.

Point 4: None of that matters any more - I'm hooked ...



Spam emails of the day:

At Midwinter Is Sarcastic

Yo Les Digo!

Italy Has Been Wildly Included

I Was At Best Buy Yesterday Where They Had The Brown Zunes

"January, February, don't you come around ..."

I hate this time of year; it's cold, grey, dark, wet, dull, & seems to stretch out forever. Days begin at about 9.00 in the morning & end at about 4.00 in the afternoon ... people who work 9 - 5 don't really get to see very much daylight at all for months.

It seems - to me at least - that it's a time when we are just treading water until Spring arrives.

"A Moment On The Lips, A Lifetime On The Hips"

It's January, & the law states that you must put at least one good intention into practice. I'm willing to bet a very large sum of money that sales of Nicorette, subscriptions to Weight Watchers, & bookings for health spas will go through the roof over the next 4 weeks.


Last year I astonished everyone - especially myself - by stopping smoking after 25 years. I'd like to say that I did it by willpower alone, but I was dosed up to the eyeballs with nicotine patches (industrial strength, 24 hour ones) & nicotine lozenges. The latter became necessary after the patches started irritating my skin, at which point the doctor advised me to stop using them, sending me into immediate & unbearable 'cold turkey'. Lozenges took the edge off this, but they taste pretty revolting. Still, that was nearly a year ago & I haven't lapsed.

The popular magazines will be full of weight loss plans this month, which will be greeted with great enthusiam by readers who are unfortunately destined to fall at the first hurdle. Generally this is because they will say something like: "Breakfast: porridge & fruit compote, Lunch: poached fish with basil puree, & Dinner: spicy kedgeree with cashews & almonds." Many will get as far as making a shopping list; some may even get as far as buying the ingredients. Few, however, will stick to the plan for the duration of the entire diet.

The only diet absolutely guaranteed to get the weight off is good old exercise & eating less (revolutionary!), but for some reason this is never included in the magazines. I once followed the Scarsdale Diet, years ago, which I seem to remember was quite effective. I also remember that I was about 14 at the time & living at home. Furthermore, my mum was doing the same diet, which of course meant that I didn't have to do any of the cooking. I doubt if I could be bothered with it now.

The diet industry is a lucrative one, and dieting costs money. From The Scotsman:

"According to Virgin Money, two million of us started last year on a diet. However, given that improving your financial wellbeing is also likely to feature high on your list of new-year resolutions, it's worth thinking about how much your plans to shape up and get fit will actually cost.

Celebrity diets don't come cheap. Virgin's research reveals that a week on the Atkins Diet - which involves loading up on meat and cheese in place of now-demonised carbs - will set you back £141.59. Even Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat Diet, which maxes out on more obviously healthy foods like fruit and vegetables, costs £91.20 a week. Then there's gym membership, averaging around £40 a month plus joining fees, not to mention all the exercise bikes, thigh masters and abdominisers that promise to whip you into shape. Even if your approach is a little less military, Virgin's research reveals the average new-year dieter will spend £34 a month on their campaign."


I know that I've put on weight over the past week or so - it's very hard not to, what with all the variety of calorie-laden foods on offer over Christmas - so tomorrow I intend to start attempting to lose it. I love food & hate dieting, so I'm not looking forward to it. So much so that I think I'm going to opt for the Special K "eat one bowl for breakfast & another for lunch, & drop a dress size!". Except I'm going to do it with Weetabix ... I also plan to eat a lot of soup, which is good for filling you up without containing that many calories (as long as you don't put loads of cream in it).

Talking of soup, there is a diet that has cabbage soup as the main component.

Imaginatively named The Cabbage Soup Diet (left), it goes as follows:

Day 1: Eat only fruit all day & as much cabbage soup as you want. N.B. no bananas.

Day 2: Eat only vegetables all day (no fruit), & a baked potato for tea. As much cabbage soup as you want.

Day 3: Eat as much fruit, veg, & cabbage soup as you want - nothing else.

Day 4: Eat 8 bananas, as much skimmed milk as you can stomach & of course loads of cabbage soup.

Day 5: 10 - 20 ounces of beef & 6 tomatoes; 8 glasses of water & lots of cabbage soup.

Day 6: Unlimited beef (2 - 3 steaks if you so wish) , veg, & cabbage soup.

Day 7: As much brown rice, fruit juice, & veg as you want. More cabbage soup.



After all of which you will never want to encounter cabbage in any form ever again.

Meals For One

It came to my attention yesterday, whilst I was doing my supermarket shopping, that you can buy packs of food 'For One'. I was horrified.

I mean, you don't get meals 'For Two', 'For Three', 'For Four' etc., do you? True, it will say in small print how many people it serves ("serves four"), but they are not marketed on the basis of how many people can eat them. It's outrageous.

They may as well have labels saying 'You Are Sad', or go one step further & have an entire section for single people, e.g. 'Meat', 'Fish', 'Breakfast Cereals', 'Household', & 'MEALS FOR SINGLE PEOPLE, & IN CASE THIS ISN'T CLEAR ENOUGH, WE MEAN PEOPLE WHO LIVE ALONE AND DON'T HAVE A PARTNER - THIS MEANS YOU!'.

Who made them the food police? When I put a pack of non-single-person food into my basket I felt really greedy, & ended up putting two packs of 'For One' into my basket. What??? It's bonkers. If I choose to eat three times as much as a single person should (or at least 'should' as dictated by Mr Asda, Mr Sainsbury or Mr Tesco) then that's my choice.

Quite apart from the above connotations, it's insulting: frankly I am quite capable of putting together a meal just for myself; I'm not about to mistakenly cook myself a whole packet of eight sausages because I've failed to work out that this pack was meant for a family & not just one person.

Perhaps it's meant to reflect the fact that there are far more single people today than ever before. According to The Times:

"There will soon be more single people than married ones in Britain. The number of single households is set to rise by 53% over the next 20 years to 9.9m, according to a report by Alliance & Leicester Mortgages. In the same period, married households are set to fall from 9.6m to 8.8m. "

Or - & I haven't actually done the research as yet, so I could be wrong - it could be that buying two 'For One's will work out more expensive (& thus bring in even more money to supermarket chains) than buying a normal size packet & eating it over two (or three) days. But maybe I'm just being cynical.

"Important lessons have been learned."

Whenever there is a disaster, caused either partly or wholly by incompetence &/or mistakes made within a company/government department/school/whatever, the inevitable response is that the "relevant issues have been addressed", "important lessons have been learned", "individuals involved have been identified & dealt with accordingly", & "procedures have been implemented to ensure a more 'joined-up' approach in the future". There are a variety of other combinations of words used in such circumstances, but essentially they are all variations of the above.

These 'lessons' are not always learned, a fact which is of course flagged up when a similar disaster occurs as a result of the non-learning of the afore-mentioned lessons. It really does beggar belief sometimes.

Lesson-learning is something that should apply to any given situation. From being very small we learn a series of lessons - some through experience, & some through being taught by parents & teachers.

But there are lessons I never seem to learn & here are some of them:

Unlearned lesson #1.

I persist in buying hair products that say they will give my hair 'volume'. They never do.

Unlearned lesson #2.

So-called 'ready meals' are a waste of money - they never taste as good as they claim, & by the time you've added all kinds of other ingredients & seasoning in order to make it edible, you could have made something from scratch. And it would have tasted a hell of a lot better.

Unlearned lesson #3.

Getting ready to go out always takes me a really long time - it always has done. I have always needed a good hour to get ready, and that's without allowing myself any time to get to where I'm going when I am ready. So why do I continue to give myself 15 minutes, thus making myself anything up to an hour & a half late every time?

Unlearned lesson #4.

I look absolutely terrible in drainpipe trousers. I looked awful in them when I was still young enough to wear them - I look even worse in them now. So what exactly was I doing trying on that pair in Asda the other day? Did I think that a miracle had befallen me overnight & suddenly I had a figure like Kate Moss? Did I think that my eyes had been deceiving me for the last 20 years & actually I had always looked fantastic in tight trousers? I looked as atrocious in them as I always have done - clearly no lesson learned there, then.

Unlearned lesson #5.

Squeezing spots will ALWAYS make them worse.

Unlearned lesson #6.

However much that lipstick may suit me - I will never ever wear it more than once. I may as well save my money.

Unlearned lesson #7.

Getting lost in my car & just driving around 'looking for something I recognise' is NEVER going to end up in anything but tears.