Well, quite a quiet period in some ways. I've been busy applying for PhDs, and had a couple of interviews at Manchester and UEA- I'll be giving more details of what's been going on when I get confirmation of whether I have funding or not for any of the projects. Hoping to get funding this year, or else it's another year of hunting for what limited employment there is in this region in the fields I'm after.

According to the law of society, I'm supposed to be obsessed by money and thus getting any old job just to get paid, but at the moment it's not a major issue; the main one for me is getting advanced in an environment/meteorology/research type career.

Other than that, been messing around, doing some oil paintings (many of which were weather-related, including a "Spanish plume" hazy scene, a picture of a cumulonimbus from that snowy ENE'ly that never was around 22 February 2007, and a stormy sunset. Some non-weather-related pictures too. Also, I've been playing quite a bit of chess.

Saw the programme on the Global Warming Swindle- I think I made my views on it fairly clear in the environment thread- a good summary of the flaws in the views of the extremists who support anthropogenic global warming (AGW), but not a major challenge to the science behind the theory of AGW. I'd quite like to see a programme on TV that takes a more intermediate stance, along similar lines to Philip Eden's books relating to the subject, rather than focusing on one side or the other. It's hard to argue with the notion that humans are probably affecting the climate to some degree- even if you take out the CO2 issue, there's aircraft contrails, methane, old aftereffects of CFCs, deforestation, albedo changes etc.