What am I doing here?

[Cross-posted] Next week, 9th January is a rather important date. Any plans?

Blow. That should have included a link. Sorry this is in its raw form: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/projectsandschemes/25979. aspx

I have just tried describing MC and the Morniverse to my new Dutch/American colleague. She needed to rush out to make tea before I had finished..

(pen) I even have trouble explaining it to blokes down the pub, some of whom are highly hedjumacated. I'd say you were very brave.

38°C at 9pm here. Toasty.

... and 34.5 at 12:15am. It is dry heat, as usual, so not particularly uncomfortable with a fan. And I have an ice pack on my foot after tripping over the base of some mobile street/shop signage this afternoon too. Ow.

[flerdle] You have my sympathy. Overnight temperatures like that are terribly enervating. Even here we are facing a few days of 'orrible 'eat. Fortunately we have an air conditioner installed; damn the cost of running it, I'll face that consequence later. As I type it's day time and just turning to 32ºC. Given the forecast I fear for my sanity and worry significantly about arsonists.

(Dujon) What you need is this. Somewhat easier are the conditions at Hughes Hall; thin fog (just below cloud base), 6.5°C. Not bad for January. It's never failed to go below 20°C at night here. I noticed Melbourne had a quite dramatic change yesterday but there seems no immediate relief in your area.

[Rosie] Fortunately I live to the east of the Great Dividing Range. Even so it's often seven or eight degrees warmer here than it is in Sydney itself (taking the BoM site at the airport as a reference). Yesterday produced some high readings in the west but, as flerdle mentioned, it is more often than not a 'dry' heat in those areas.
I have not listened to the news this morning but yesterday Tasmania and Victoria were suffering terribly from bushfires. Given my location I am, so far, happy that apart from re-packing our photographs and important papers into a suitcase for easy evacuation there has been no immediate threat.
[flerdle] Where are you, you world flitting butterfly?

[Dujon] Back in Melbourne. The cool change that Rosie mentioned came through here noticeably at about 2-2:30am Saturday, and yesterday was lovely. Today is pleasant too. Tomorrow should be up to 38, then down again to the low 20s. Then up again... This is very normal here, but it plays havoc with my sinuses.

I surmised such was the case, flerdle, but knowing you you could have been just about anywhere it was hot. Fortunately we've been spared extreme temperatures here (I saw that somewhere in the state managed 46ºC the other day. Phew!). Our friendly BoM though is promising 43º tomorrow (Tuesday). We'll see.

[Rosie] Dramatic changes are quite common in Melbourne. In mid-December I was out at 5pm and the temperature was about 34, iirc. As I walked home I noticed a distinctly chilly wind; by 5:45 the temperature was 22. (flerdle may remember the temperatures more accurately than I do!)

I spent longer than I had intended reading the Pea and Honey Recipes game last night - right from the beginning. From it, I can trace (in my case) two job moves and two house moves, a new relationship and a marriage. And it's bloody good quality. Some of it is even excellent. *rejoins game with renewed vigour*

(Duj, flerdle, CdM) The heatwave is noteworthy enough to have a summary here. It's not a heatwave, of course; it's a heatwave event.

Ah, the dear old BoM. I am not denigrating the organisation, in fact if I could give it some sort of collective hug for the information it supplies so freely I would. Whilst the data included in your link are interesting I found the text a little 'non-BoM' style. By the way, Chez Dujon recorded a pretty normal summer temperature of but 37.9ºC yesterday, although some of the more coastal (offical) sites reported around and about the 43º forecast.

*sighs and blames the heat*

(Duj) I think OZBOM is pretty good, one of the best national services.
37.9°C normal? Hmm, I'd guess your mean max in January is just below 30°C. I shall retaliate with a -9.2°C max on 12 Jan 1987. Sunny all day; it was weird.

Your 30ºC is probably a pretty good estimate. The 37.9ºC I experienced yesterday is, nevertheless, not some sort of extraordinary event - after all it's only just over the old 'ton', a not unexpected event here. Your minus readings you can, like many in North America, Siberia and such high latitude places, keep to yourself.
[To the rest of you] Sorry about the weather stuff.

(Dujon) Your 37.9 is about the same as me getting 30; it happens about once a year. The UK record is 38.1 (10 Aug 2003) and the RosieRecord a paltry 35.9, same day.
The minus 9.2 was what statisticians may well call a "different population". I've had a number between -5 and -6 but this was lower than I'd thought I'd ever see here.
You wouldn't like this place.

No more than I'd take a holiday here, Rosie. ;)
Anyway, some time this afternoon or, more probably tomorrow's morn, I shall have to climb yet again on to my roof and clear off all the leaf litter and branches that have been deposited there since the last time I undertook the task. It seems that we are due for another blast of hot and dry air in a couple or three days so to fail to do so could well be construed by some to be a form of criminal negligence.

(Duj) You won't be having a bonfire, then. I shouldn't.
Vostok leaves me speechless even as a weather nut. But Jakutsk is a sizeable city and quite a nice one. The current fog has lasted about 10 days, the temperature falling slowly all the time. The city causes the fog.

Can we resolve to kill games off with greater assiduity this year? I think higher turnover would be a good thing.

Indeed. * rushes off with a gleeful glint in her eye.*

Tuesday already? How did that happen.

Fog all day at Plas Huws and a max temp of -1°C. An odd phenomenon and the reverse of what is usually seen is that the hoar frost (possibly rime) deposit is confined to the tops of hedges and bushes and there's none on the grass or on my car. I put this down to heat from the ground. Nothing else would seem to explain it.
(Jakutsk update) They still have fog, as they have had since before the New Year. The temperature is about -46°C and goes up and down a degree or two independently of time of day but more in response (probably) to the presence or absence of high cloud, which you can't see anyway ("sky obscured"). The sun does its best but at this time of year 4 degrees from the Arctic Circle it may as well not bother. No wind to speak of; they're probably breathing the same shitty air they were at Christmas.

Out in the sticks here in Berkshire, I don't think we got above -2C, and didn't witness any of the sunny spells suggested by the BBC's local weather site; just a mid-grey blanket of cloud all day.

-9C driving through patches of fog just before sunrise this morning, brilliant sunshine all day but below freezing because the consistency of snow on the ground is unchanged (although I was indoors all day) and now -8.5C through patchy fog all the way home. A clear view of the newish moon above. Lekker weer. (and a reasonably enjoyable Dutch lesson this evening - bonus!)

That's Rotterdam and the countryside to the south of the city, for dem dat don't know.

40.7 at 17:30

that's over 105

-12C this morn, and my car tried to overheat when stuck in a queue.

(Boolbar) They all do. I'm no fan of radiators.

Striking off at a tangent. My daughter would like to know why household radiators are so called, when they should really be "convectors" ?

Mrs INJ was woken up by our local earthquake (a whole 2.9 on the Richter scale). I slept through it.

My god, the weight of snow blanketing the country must now be so thick it's beginning to distort the Earth's very crust!

Appreciably less effort has gone into clearing roads of snow in the midlands compared to previous years. I blame the bankers.

Three things I am grateful for, in the snowy conditions.

1. I only live 5 miles from work, along gritted roads
2. West Berks council are well-funded and efficient
3. 5 or 6 young men that were pushing every car out of the village I work in on Friday morning, when the MD decreed we could go home. They were cheerfully jogging down the hill, pushing a car up it until they got some grip near the top, waving them on their way, and jogging back down again. I'd buy them a pint if I knew who they were.

(Phil) Not having to go to work is also very useful. But band rehearsal was cancelled tonite which I thought was feeble.
Jakutsk update - the fog has just cleared for the first time this year and they have a balmy -32° with light snow.

[Rosie] I did continue to work from home for most of the rest of the day. In theory I could probably work from home every day, and pop in for the odd meeting - maybe once a week for an hour.

Just made zucchini chutney. Yum.

[flerdle] And now you've made me crave Brie - yum!

Interesting weather day today, with no warming forecast in the daylight hours. The 7am temperature was 27, and the hourly forecasts indicate a monotonically declining temperature until 5am tomorrow, when the temperature is forecast to be 13. I haven't checked over night data, but I suspect there has also been a monotonic decline for the last 12 hours or so, from yesterday's high of around 39. If I'm right and the forecast is right, that suggests we will have eventually have seen declining temperatures for about 36 hours straight.

(CdM) Er, where are you? I presume Melbourne or thereabouts. That must be very unusual given that it's summer and the sun tends to come out and ruin the "monotony". In the winter, at least here, the temperature can be very steady, day and night, if it's cloudy. In February 1985 there was a very nearly monotonic decline for 90 hours from 9.8 to -5.7 with just a couple of short spells when it went up 0.1 to 0.2 deg. The wind was ENE throughout and there was cloud, then rain, then sleet then snow.

Lots of wonderful weather rushing into Zuid Holland from the North Sea today - hail and snow showers with sun. I have no idea how cold it is out there - have barely moved 30m from my desk all day.

Thankfully I avoid processed food as far as is possible. I have eaten horse in the past while in France. Tastes much like beef to me. Still, it is fraud if not anything else, passing off food as beef. Bound to bugger up brand image, though. C'est la vie.

I might have eaten horse in Malta, where they do. At a café, I had a baguette curiously labelled as "meat and salad". But it could just as easily have been beef. So there's the answer: just label things as "meat (produce of more than one species)", and add disclaimers like "prepared in a facility where horsemeat may be processed". Then the meat wholesalers can do their deals with the Romanian mafia above board. Come to think of it, Indian restaurants in the UK often list their curry options as chicken, prawns, or meat. I'd always assumed it was because there's something of a taboo against eating cows in India, but perhaps their "meat" doesn't come from cows.

This all reminds me of this story about the lack of lamb in lamb curries (and kebabs).

Hello. Just a heads-up that this site will go down for an hour or two on the night of the 1st March, as the physical hardware is moving to a new home. Not that anyone will notice, but I just thought I'd mention it.

(rab) Blimey, there's posh. I didn't understand a word of it. Thanks for your efforts, as ever.

I don't understand it either but I get these hilariously breathless emails from time to time about technical incidents, the impact of which is always minimal.

Don't worry, Rosie, rab, like the Mayans, talks in mysterious ways.

It's been up to over 15° here and very nice too except that I now have no excuse whatever for not doing a bit of gardening. In parts of Yorkshire and near the east coast it's stayed below 3°. That's spring for you. Of course it were always below -20° when ah were a lad.

We've had a couple of nice sunny days over here on the rock but now it is starting to cloud over again, I suspect that we shall soon get the forecast rain. It has been dry for 10 days - fantastic, even managed to mow the lawn this morning.

After dropping the daughter off in Reading at 7pm tonight, I appear to have no plans for the weekend - for the first time in absolutely yonks. Of course, the watching of rugby on TV will take place. Anyone doing anything interesting?

One more room to paint in the new house, then get the professional in to do hall stairs & landing (not all this weekend!)
Then it's get the current main dwelling ready to sell. That's my weekends for the next month.

This is the foulest March day I can remember. Snow showers, strong NE'ly wind, temperature a steady -2°C.
(Softers) I see Jersey Airport is now closed due to snow. You're cut off unless you fancy the ferry with a gale in the Channel. Not too warm either.

37 here.

[Rosie] Yes, a friend is stranded in Portsmouth awaiting the departure of the conventional ferry. The airport is still closed till tomorrow, probably. 0C as I write, still snowing though forecast to stop soon. Hopefully it will warm up in the next 24 hours and normality will resume.

Yesterday, I did my first Dutch Reformed Church funeral (my husband's 91-year old aunt - the last of the generation of my parents-in-law. The aunt was the only one of that generation that I ever met). Please make sure that there is wine or whisky at my funeral. A funeral and a burial without cheer is a very sombre and long affair indeed. And for God's sake, don't let that preacher in.
After that, I managed two hours' of frantic work back at the office.
Then I did an hour-and-a-half hour written Dutch exam (Niveau 2.1 - pre-intermediate, apparently). I don't expect 100%, but I do expect a pass.
And then I went to a wedding party, drank two glasses of red wine on an empty stomach and spoke the best Dutch of my life to people that I actually know here now.
Brilliant.

(pen) Niveau 2.1? Are you sure it was Dutch? :-)

The Dutch stole a lot of words from French. That's one of them.

Hello again to the good people of mc5! I return after an absence of several years, as prolonged underemployment has left me eager for intellectually stimulating entertainments. I hope you are all doing well!

Intellectual? Patronising, paternalistic, priggish, puerile, pathetic (and, no doubt, many other words beginning with Tuj's favorite letter) probably - but intellectual it isn't. Even I am tolerated! Perhaps you are the one to raise the bar?       ;)

How about "pseudo-intellectual"? That should satisfy your terms and Tuj's preferences simultaneously!

Perfect.