A perennial seasonal annoyance

Thursday December 30th and thus this year has but a day and a bit to run. And then it will be the New Year. Not going too fast for you I trust?

However in New Zealand we are at the cusp of the season of New Years - plural. What are you doing for New Years? I am going to Whangamata for New Years (I will therefore get a hangover/be arrested/feature on the six o'clock News/all of the above) etc. This is New Years without the apostrophe which would be acceptable as a shortened form of New Year's Eve; the Eve of New Year. Or, I suppose, a shortened form of New Year's frog or New Year's plate galss bicycle.

This abuse of the English language is one that really gets up my nose on an annual basis. It is so unnecessary but I doubt it can be eradicated without a change in statute; people up against a wall for misuse of the English language style of a thing. At the end of December we look forward to a New Year - singular. On Saturday 2011 will start; we do not get the commencement of two (or more) New Years. It is not January 1st 2011 and 1947 however much fun that may be. Would be rather amusing to be given the option of any other year to start at the same time as the real New Year, would it not? I think I would go for 2011 and 1969. Good year 1969. Long fine UK summer, rock climbing, start of medical school, dreadful haircut and good music. Perhaps I could have 2012 and 1976 with a bit of 2031 as a side order. Big fish in Papua New Guinea, a Mr McCawber financial strategy, carefree and a glimpse of life at eighty.

I am looking forward to the New Year (singular) which will start with a week in Penang and Singapore - never a hardship.

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Seasonal Climate Change Crap

A few weeks off during the Festive Season and other goings on around Obald Acres so why not amuse one's self for a minute or two with a spot of blogging.

I have my brother visiting from the UK at the moment (vide supra) and he is due to fly back to the frozen North on Thursday in order that he may partake of his mince pies in a more traditional Yuletide climate. But wait, it is not that at all. There are polar bears in Oxford Street, the British Prime Minister is at his weekend igloo and the 0843 from Penge really is cancelled because of snow drifts. There is every chance that brother will not be able to return to Heathrow on Thursday at all 'cos Heathrow is closed. As is Gatwick and Stanstead and for all I know that Johnny come lately, London City Airport. This is not because the National Union of Airport Bog Cleaners is on strike it is because the UK has ground to halt under snowfalls of biblical proportions. Worst (or best if you are eyeing up Boxhill with your toboggan) snowfall in Britain for decades. Global warming my arse.

But the idiot warmists are not so easily shot down. 'You deniers really don't understand the difference between climate and weather'. Condescending pratts. Well, you bleeding fools I'll tell you what the difference between climate and weather is in your warped parallel universe. When it gets hotter it is climate and when it is unusually cold it has to be weather.

Why the hell do we waste food on these morons?

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