Head of water resources at the Environment Agency Trevor Bishop said: “A longer-term drought, lasting until Christmas and perhaps beyond, now looks more likely.
Hundreds of alerts have been issued by the Environment Agency this month, as several days’ worth of rain has fallen in just a few hours at its worst, contributing to a year of bad weather which has left the UK on the brink of its wettest since records began in 1910.
Those climate experts…..don’t you just love them……
posted by david in Climate Change,Environment and have Comments Off on Hey Mr Expert – Remember That “2012 Year Of UK Drought” Prediction You Made In April?
One of the most beautiful and loved of English carols, “The Holly and the Ivy” is said by some to spring from a centuries old tradition in England’s villages where groups of men and women would compete against each other in a midwinter singing contest.
Three plants remained green throughout the winter of an English village – holly, ivy and mistletoe – and so they would be used to garland the church at Christmas time. In the singing contest men would sing the praises of the holly, women would laud the ivy and the good natured rivalry would then be resolved under the mistletoe.
The fact that the carol speaks mainly of holly would suggest it is descended from the song of the men!!!
A timeless, haunting melody that intertwines the symbolism of the nativity with the eternal rhythms of English rural life and the bond of love between woman and man…..
1. The holly and the ivy,
Now both are full well grown.
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
Chorus
Oh, the rising of the sun,
The running of the deer.
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the quire.
2. The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Savior.
Chorus
3. The holly bears a berry
As red as any blood;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To do poor sinners good.
Chorus
4. The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas day in the morn.
Chorus
5. The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to redeem us all.
Chorus
6. The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,4
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
Chorus
[7. The rising of the sun
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.
Hey, folks – President Obama and his team do not like all this stuff happening in Britain about the rise of UKIP and growing support for the UK getting the hell out of the EU.
They don’t like the Eurosceptic signals being given out by a David Cameron who is very worried that many conservative voters outside the Notting Hill metro elite bubble are abandoning his party and shifting to UKIP.
“It is important to state very clearly that a strong UK in a strong Europe is in America’s national interest,” said a senior US administration official. “We recognise national states but see the EU as a force multiplier.”
Well, Mr President, surprisingly enough we feel that serving America’s interests is not the primary function of any UK government. We would dearly love to have a government whose lodestar was always putting the interests of the British people at the top of it’s agenda
Funny isn’t it that an American administration which has consistently failed to pay due regard to our shared political and cultural traditions should be putting pressure on us to stay in the EU for the sake of the USA.
The EU is a bloated bureaucratic monstrosity, inefficient and corrupt
Maybe that’s why Obama loves it so much….after all he did cut his political teeth in Chicago….
Such a jolly, boisterous carol – and sung here as, perhaps, it might have been originally intended. We don’t know when it was composed or who wrote it but it first appeared in print in the 17th century and maybe came from the county of Derbyshire in England. Some say it is a variant of “Greensleeves” but others more doubtful. The reference to three ships sailing into Bethlehem is odd but remember that in older times most people portrayed the stories of the Bible against their own local background…..
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?
And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Pray, wither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Pray, wither sailed those ships all three,
On Christmas Day in the morning?
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
O they sailed into Bethlehem,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the Angels in Heaven shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
And all the souls on earth shall sing,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Then let us all rejoice again,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;
Then let us all rejoice again,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
UKIP is the only political party gaining support in the latest round of opinion polls – shooting up to 14% and pushing the Lib Dems into fourth place.
Cue for a chorus of sneers from assorted politicians and pundits..
“False dawn”
“It’ll never happen”
“Protest vote”
Etc, etc etc
Dont be too sure. Although Cameron’s Tory toffs are down to 28% there is no really significant yearning for Labour’s Milliband and Balls….39% is hardly a massive endorsement, even with the full weight of the BBC behind them. A lot of Labour voters want stricter immigration controls and less taxpayer’s hard earned cash going to the feckless and indigent – and they don’t believe Labour economic policies will work.
Voters in general are extremely mistrustful of the political elite and their puppet masters in the media/cultural elite who love to speak on behalf of “the people”….who claim to know what we need better than we do ourselves..
A lot of us have hesitated to throw our lot in with UKIP because it did seem such a forlorn hope. Now even the broadsheets are having to take it seriously – the next few months could see a surge in membership and some serious money going UKIP’s way.
Yes folks, aren’t you glad that the money taken out of your pocket via the BBC Poll Tax, enabled so many of the BBC elite to travel back and forth over the Atlantic?
The BBC spent more than £1 million on flights to America in the space of seven months this year, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,
Executives including former director-general Mark Thompson clocked up the massive bill flying both business and economy class for meetings and to make programmes.
Yes, forget about the excessive use of fossil fuel and annoying the citizens who live under your flight path – is it absolutely essential to be physically present at those meetings? After all the BBC is television company…can’t they organise “virtual” conferences via skype?
Then what about making programmes – the BBC schedules are full of rubbish anyway so is it necessary to spend hundreds of thousands on sending “Top Gear” or Stephen Fry to the USA as a change of background from the usual crap?
Of course, the costs of these visits are even greater when you consider the hotel bills (doubt whether they stay in Motel 6) and cabs, hire cars, restaurants etc
Note that Mark Thompson travelled to the US a lot – did that include visits to his new employer, the New York Times? I think we should be told…
But do you know what, for me, is the most gut wrenching fact of all?
As the BBC is not legally obliged to reveal full details of how it spends the £3.7 billion it is given each year through the licence fee, it is not possible to name every staff member who flew to the U.S. between April and October.
Not good enough – it is this kind of “broad brush accounting” that helps to cover a multitude of sins. It’s time we were allowed to see these detailed accounts because, after all, IT IS OUR MONEY, YOU BBC FREELOADERS
A few weeks ago a majority of Americans voted to put the lunatics in charge of the asylum. That is essentially what Matt Welch was saying in a rather sombre piece at Reason – an article so depressing it ought to have had a health warning attached.
If elections are up-or-down assessments of politicians’ job performance, then this was a vote in favor of trillion-dollar annual deficits, bailout economics, and failing the minimum competence test of passing an annual budget. Federal policy for four years has produced lousy short-term results for the price of long-term insolvency, and now the characters responsible for this misgovernance have been given a pat on the head.
That’s right, despite Sarah Palin’s uncannily perceptive prediction in 2008, the USA wants more Styrofoam columns…..
So, just because Milliband and Balls are being constantly mocked in many of the public prints for their infantile money grows on trees rhetoric against public spending cuts, don’t imagine that our own band of lunatics cannot possibly party their way to power here in the UK in 2015….
Prof Jacobson’s blog at Legal Insurrection should be a must read for any English politics junkie interested in American conservatism. With the exceptions of Dan Riehl and Instapundit nobody else mines the seam of small government outside-the-beltway Edward Abbey style mockery of bien pensant radical chic so effectively.
Which of course is why we here in the UK never hear his name mentioned by the High Tory bloggers at Conservative Home and Coffee House who much prefer the bleating of David Frum and the ravings of Andrew Sullivan
So I must recommend a guest post at LI by Joel Berger in which he takes to task, not just the liberal/left US/UK media but also several highly respected Israeli talking heads who are constantly chanting the mantra that, at some stage the Israelis should start a dialogue with the Hamas leadership in Gaza.
Berger turns the question around. Since Hamas is wedded and glued to the total destruction of the Israeli state and also driven by a hatred of Jews as visceral and obsessive as any SS operative there can be very little mileage in attempting to initiate dialogue. That’s why Berger is saying that the onus should be on pushing Hamas to the conference chamber. After all, why should anyone be expected to “negotiate” with a group of people who not only glory in violence but also say they are going to throw you not only out of your house but also over the top of the 500 ft cliff that is behind it?
The Palestinian political elite, be it Arafat or Hamas, see any Israeli concession as a sign of weakness, not of good will. That the UK and US should still be pushing initiatives and plans based on the assumptions of a two way street in the face of a self proclaimed disdain from Hamas is yet another triumph of hope over substance.
MPs have hired a lawyer to challenge their own expenses watchdog in court to let them keep the profits from the sale of their taxpayer-funded second homes.
…..and I wonder who will eventually pay this lawyer’s fees?
