Lenticular clouds

A fab picture of lenticular clouds forming over the Mount Redoubt vulcano in Alaska



Ht-Lorraine Warren

Off Topic-Tarantula village

Enough of swine flu and Gurkhas what about tarantulas

Can Gordon save the earth?

I wonder whether this will make the paper's tomorrow.

The New Scientist is reporting that

an asteroid that had initially been deemed harmless has turned out to have a slim chance of hitting Earth in 160 years.

As the article points out

new calculations show a 1 in 1400 chance that it will strike Earth between 2169 and 2199, with an estimated diameter of 560 metres, 1999 RQ36 is more than twice the size of the better-known asteroid Apophis, which has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting Earth in 2036 . Both are large enough to unleash devastating tsunamis if they were to smash into the ocean.

ht-comment is central

My recollections

I haven't been personally chosen by Iain Dale but I thought that I would play the game that is running around the blogosphere as to where you were on five momentous occasions in history.

Princess Diana’s death, 31 August 1997

I had been out,cannot remember where but came in and switched the telly onto Sky News seeing the initial reports that she had been in an accident.I stayed up and watched the story develop as it became clear that this was serious.Finally with tiredness getting the better of me,i retired to bed with the Radio on and I remember waking to the first announcement,I think it was on Radio 5 that she had died.

Margaret Thatcher’s resignation, 22 November 1991

At work.I had an office at the top of the building which was an old house.One of my colleagues ran around all the offices shouting into each person that Mrs Thatcher had resigned.

Attack on the twin towers, Tuesday 11 September 2001

Again at work.This time in a large open plan office,it was a computer company whose name will not be mentioned.Someone from the next office had been watching the coverage of the first plane and said there had been an accident at the WTC.I tried to access the internet but by this time it had slowed to a trickle and it was impossible to load.Then the news of the second plane and I rushed to watch the coverage now aware that this was a terrorist attack.What I remember most was how dis interested the other people in my office were.One actually said that I have got more important things to do than watch this.It turned out that he was doing his monthly reconciliation of a balance sheet account which took him most of every month to do.I think that was the start of my disillusionment with the world of finance.

England’s World Cup Semi Final v Germany, 4 July 1990

I watched this at my parents house.Can't remember why I was there but I do remember being phoned up during the penalty shoot by someone with no interest in football who was trying to organise the cricket team for the weekend.And when Gazza missed that chance in extra time the cat fell off the chair

President Kennedy’s Assassination, 22 November 1963

I still had one month to go before I came into the world.

Picture of the day

Via the Anorak

Enough said?

Taking a break

For the next week and a half will be travelling through the Scottish Highlands

A massive cock up in Riyadh

Peace has once again broken out between Syria and Lebanon after last month's fighting in Beirut between factions loyal to Syria and the Lebanese government.

Therefore when the Lebanese football team turned up at the King Fahd Stadium to play a world cup qualifier,tensions were raised when the Syrian national anthem by mistake.

Fans were left shocked and Lebanese players were visibly angry when the Syrian national anthem began blaring from the stadium’s speakers, the Arriyadiyah sports daily reported yesterday. Officials quickly realized their mistake, and eventually played the correct national anthem. However, the error, which was committed by the organizing officials of the tournament, prompted the President of the Saudi Football Federation, Prince Sultan ibn Fahd, to order an official investigation into the incident.

For the record Lebanon lost 2-1

Off Topic

With all eyes on the final Democratic primries tonight and the will she wont she questions for Hillary,here is another bit of American news to lighten our senses.

The Huffington Post reports that

The man who designed the Pringles potato crisp packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic cans.
Fredric J. Baur, of Cincinnati, died May 4 at Vitas Hospice in Cincinnati, his family said. He was 89.

the report adds

Baur's children said they honored his request to bury him in one of the cans by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township. The rest of his remains were placed in an urn buried along with the can, with some placed in another urn and given to a grandson, said Baur's daughter, Linda Baur of Diamondhead, Miss

Is Education getting easier?

Could not help but laugh at this via Archbishop Cramer who obviously is rather cynical about education standards

1. Teaching Maths In 1970:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or £80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is £80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2008:

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of £20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers. )

6. Teaching Maths 2018:

أ المسجل تبيع حموله شاحنة من الخشب من اجل 100 دولار. صاحب تكلفة الانتاج من الثمن. ما هو الربح ل

No it's not climate change stupid

A little off topic but I couldnt help but notice this article over at Newsweek

Daniel Gross has plotted the correlation between natural disasters and the election of American presidents and concludes

I predict with a high degree of confidence that this year, the nation will witness an unexpectedly large number of destructive acts of nature—floods of biblical proportions, out-of-control wildfires, destructive tornadoes, and bone-rattling earthquakes—that will require a prompt, compassionate, and expensive response from the federal government

For according to

Erwann Michel-Kerjan, an economist at the Wharton School who studies catastrophes. According to Michel-Kerjan, this uptick in natural disasters will likely have nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with the fact that 2008 is an election year.

And if you don't beleive it check out the website

I am saying no more-Perhaps someone could do the same exercise for Britain?