Current Affairs
So This Is Fine: Trump, Term Two, and the Calm Before the Midterms
Donald Trump is now well into his second term, the desk once again occupied by a man who treats the Constitution like terms and conditions he didn’t bother to read. We are now trundling cheerfully towards the mid-terms like passengers on a bus with no brakes not knowing what is coming next. If it feels surreal, that’s because it is. This is no longer a warning from history, this is the bit that future documentaries will pause on, lower ...
A System Balanced on a Knife Edge – It’s Snow Joke for Forecasters
The deep area of low pressure developing and heading across southern England on Friday is one of those weather systems that makes forecasters quietly sigh, put the kettle on, and cancel any plans they had for being confidently correct. Not because it lacks potential, quite the opposite - but because it sits right on the most awkward of battlegrounds. Cold air is already in place, milder air is trying to barge in from the Atlantic, and the ...
A Tale of Pink Fog
This morning I looked outside, did a double take, and briefly wondered whether I was still half-asleep. Because the fog was pink. Not sort of pink. Proper, rosy, “has someone messed with the settings?” pink. In all my years of staring out of windows and obsessing about the weather, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before, so naturally my first thought was: what on earth is going on now? Thankfully, it turns out nothing dramatic ...
Is Climate Change Supercharging the Jet Stream – and Ruining Our Chances of Proper Winters?
What We Need for a Classic Winter One of the quirks of UK winter is the “blocking high”. that stubborn ridge of high pressure which parks itself over Greenland or Scandinavia and funnels icy Arctic air towards us. When one of these blocks settles in, we get the sort of winter weather people still get misty-eyed about: crisp days, deep frosts, frozen ponds, maybe even some snow that sticks around long enough to matter. Why Blocking ...
How Much Do You Cost in State Funding?
One thing that I find odd, is that nearly all my working life, I have been told in the media that tax is evil, spawned from the devil of socialism. The truth is, most people cost the state far more than they think and would die in poverty if state health and education was privatised and taxation was abandoned. It would be like living with Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome. We all know a certain type of person who loves to shout:“I’ve ...