Well, not just the BBC. I only watched that today.
The nice lady came on and told us how "fantastci" the weather had been today.

"And the Good news is that there is plenty more to come of the next few days.
Most of Southern and central England can expect to bask in glorious sunshine this week. A great opportunity to head for the beach and enjoy unseasonally warm teperatures of more than 20°…"

Then immediately a news story follows about huge moorland fires in Yorkshre due to the 'tinderbox' landscape.

How on earth are 'we' going to get the messages about climate chnage, carbon footprints and global warning if the weathermen always describe things in such crazy, overblown ways. As long as people believe this sunshine, dryness and bright weather to be a Good Thing, then why should they do anything about it?
Not balming people, its only natural, but that is the mentality we are up against.
It's that double-standard thing again that really 'grips my shit', as it were!

Sensationalise glorious hot sunshine in April and promote lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions?
Encourage young people to wear provocative clothing and condemn those who find them attractive to a life of eternal damnation?
Turn hostages into media heroes and condemn them for selling stories?
Generate a social climate of self-evasion and expect teenagers not to stab one another to death in the streets?

Advertise SPAM FILTERS and EFFECTIVE EMAIL MARKETING on the same page!!! grrrr

I'm shutting up now. Getting bored listening to myself.

Mum and Dad brought Flo home today.
I think she had a good time with them, but she says so little about these things.
Excited to be back though, and even seemed to spend more time with A than is normal. Good to see them (at least for a while) just talking together and playing in the garden.
It’s LC that has been the most difficult of late – a real powerhouse of unpredictable emotions for the last couple of days. Mind you, given that A and S have also been rather challenging this afternoon and simply will NOT settle to anything either inside or out, I think the diagnosis is a simple, but acute and all too familiar case of TooMuchChocolate.
Children in particular don’t handle it at all well and the difference in behaviour that results is readily apparent.
Short attention span, impatience, restlessness, tiredness and irritability.
Perhaps Easter’s notso hot after all
Thankfully they have only had two eggs each.

Good to spend more time with mum and dad again. Both seemed relaxed and had enjoyed Flo’s company. Bit of a surprise to learn of their longer term plans to relocate the static caravan to the New forest area from its current, 40+ year home in Norfolk.
They are tiring of the East Coast I think, but more especially the journey over there. Certainly we have not been able to go since they moved from North Walsham to Yarmouth which is a drive for us in excess of four hours. Simply too far, for the type of holiday I am not sure Tx is desperately keen on anyway.
I am a little frustrated that they still charge so little for anyone to rent the van for a week and seem determined to pay for their own holidays. Maybe it sounds a little mercenary to me and I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t feel the cost of the van so acutely.
If it’s difficult to pay the site rents, then surely it makes commercial sense to put the rates up. Even something like £100 a week would be a very cheap holiday, but bring in more than enough money over a 32 week season to cove the costs.
I think this is something we will discuss in years to come. Angie and I could perhaps consider investing in a share of the van so as to give ourselves a free couple of trips a year and secure a long term asset for our children in their turn. At their time of life, Mum and dad do not need an albatross around their necks, and we certainly don’t want to inherit one.
I can understand and fully respect the decision to maintain a presence in Norfolk at all as a commitment to Nan and granddad who put the first one in before I was born, at Pinewoods outside Cromer. My sister and I, and all my cousins practically grew up there and we holidayed nowhere else for over 20 years.
I cut my teeth as a birder in the van there and the first one Mum and Dad put in Wells hosted the twitching set countless times. But Granddad a business head too, so he would get where I am coming from.
I wouldn’t want to run it as a business to make a profit, but simply charge enough to hirers to cover the cost of rent, maintenance, insurance, stocks and supplies and travel costs for the owners.

Can’t remember much else that we talked about this time round.
Must have been ordinary. Very good thing.
Dad helped me put up a couple of lower supports for the new apple tree which I had mis-judged, and the outside loo doesn’t leak as much any more. Result.
Superb cake too – thanks Mum!

Tonight my new drinking partner Mark has been over with a memory stick containing six albums that we discussed last week. Well, albums by seven artists anyway. And none of which I have before. Only two I have even heard, so well played that man.
Hopefully over the next few weeks I will be able to comment on:
Code:Selfish – The Fall
(always thereabouts but to date I own nothing of theirs and have heard only a handful of songs)
Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis
(first solo album from Talk Talk frontman. Never liked their stuff. Dubious)
Pulp – This is Hardcore
(I have two other albums, both excellent. Don’t know this one)
Rain tree Crow – Rain tree Crow
(Sylvian, Bill nelson and co. Always seemed a little pretentious and ‘worldly’. Dubious)
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hyaena
(I have this on an overplayed tape. Very welcome. Brilliant album)
Tom Waits – real Gone
(from 2004. I know far too little of his more recent work)

Yesterday, Kink delivered albums by
The Cure
The Radio dept
Bauhaus
Interpol
Six by Seven
Kings of Leon
Nine Inch Nails – And all that could have been
Iggy Pop – Nude and Rude
Jamiroquai – A Funk Odyssey
Led Zeppelin
Velvet revolver
Jah Wobble
Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
Foo Fighters
Robin Guthrie
Ozric tentacles
White Stripes
Pulp – We Love Life
Robert Plant
Audio Slave
Black rebel Motorcycle Club
Fields of the Nephilim – Elizium
Clan of Xymox
My Vitriol
Gorillaz
Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
Lupine howl – The Bar at the End of the World
Thunderball original soundtrack
Slipknot – Volume 3The Bravery
The Killers
The Libertines

I could be quite busy!!!

Today I played the Kaiser Chiefs album three times.
Its catchy and immediately impressive, although the singles lack any real depth.
Aside from the cleverly crafted poptastic “Every Day I Love You Less and Less’ and “I predict a riot” which sound like everyone else the album has psychedelic influences that I like, and some very good lyric writing. Their identity comes out on other songs, and though I got bored on the third play, this is definitely one of the better bands around at the moment.

Sitting here now reading through some emails and debating whether or not I can really afford to get involved with Something Else. Four times this year (and again this Weds) I have attended evening meetings of the Southampton Writers Circle out of loyalty to a friend, but also because I share her passion for writing and could really do with a forum in which to share notes, ideas and constructive comments. This SWC though is crap, and doesn’t address any of thsee points. Is a tiny group of elderly people who have been doing it for years and years, one of whom I think was once published between the wars or something. They all submit articles and short stories to magazines like the Peoplpe’s Friend, for goodness sake.
They are currently being shaken to the core by comments from some of the younger committee members who can see the group going down the toilet. Every meeting there are new faces coming along who never come back again because its so dire, and they want to stop that. My friend has kindly (??) copied me into some heated email exchanges and I desperately feel and share her frustration. She and a colleague have now hinted that I join them setting up(or taking over!) the group so we can alter the dynamic and make it grow and breathe new life into a dead horse.
Can I be bothered?
What an outrageous question.
Of course I can, but is it really something worthy of the time it will require??

Tx despairs of me, and sometimes its easy to see why.