h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ahahaa! 2/6 colleagues w*rking late recognized the reference without even watching/listening to the youtube video - great to have such mature and knowledgeable colleagues

[GDZ]

So sorry for your problems Titania but thank you for cheering my morning with the Dusty Springfield view. I once wrote a little piece on Dusty:

In my youth I had quite a passion for Dusty Springfield, in the days when she was still with her brother Tom in the Springfields. I had high hopes because she and I had a lot in common. I was partial to petite blonde girls with beehive hair do’s and lashings of mascara. Sadly for me, so was Dusty.

I've suddenly realised I'm now writing three different blog/journal type things

I've had an on-off one on beer for a *long* time, then there's the on-off one here for about as long, and now I'm writing one on my writing site. I'm just glad I'm not having to do all of them everyday instead of when I find something to write about

I have been writing a diary/scrapbook entry every day for the last five years. Luckily for the general viewer it is unpublished. If I tell you that only the very best bits actually escape into the open, you will know how dire most of it is,

Are all salonistas safe? The pictures of the south coast of England are stunning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-26048808

And by the way, it's Freddie time again.

Here in Nodnol it has not been as bad as that, but we have had a fair bit of rain.

However since I retired I've been looking to move... towards the South West, two of the places I went to see before Christmas are now inundated.
Good job I hadn't put an offer in.

Ooh and just for !fun.
there is another storm coming in tomorrow and over the weekend.

We are in a right run of them.

Here's the environment agencies photos.
These storms have been going on since before christmas.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/environment-agency/

Lovely find Bald Bloke!

Looked at the shipping forecast on Tuesday night the met office gave; 'violent storm force 11 occasionally hurricane force 12, sea state phenomenal' for sea area Sole. That's not something you see very often. I am going sailing at the end of the month for 5 days, hope it calms down a bit before then.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/guide/shipping/key.html

The damaged section of railway at Dawlish is my favourite bit of my favourite train journey . I've taken photos of the waves spraying the train and DH and I once had a lovely afternoon at Starcross, just up the line, at a museum devoted to Brunel's 'atmospheric railway' - the original line along this section was vacuum-powered.

Here in the Northamptonshire Uplands it's squelchy but not flooded.

Mol

I think we are all going to need our wellies this weekend

This forcaster is normally quite low key, so it must be looking bad.
http://www.weatherweb.net/wxwebtvsimonnew.php?ID=988

http://www.weatherweb.net/wxwebtv2.php

Yeah, just a look at the surf charts is scary enough: http://magicseaweed.com/UK-Ireland-Surf-Chart/1/

You need to click play or skip through it, starts getting scary Friday morning.

barely begins to describe it.

There is a reason why the English are born with webbed feet! (aside from the aristocracy who are just inbred).

I am a bit perplexed why so many people, in so many different countries, living in areas that are sure to be flooded every couple of years still insist on keep living in the same area, and even rebuilding ruined houses.

The first flood I experienced was in Switzerland, in May 1983. Seven/eight years apart, they get flooded on both the Swiss and the Italian side of the border, both from heavy spring rains and snow and glaciers melting.

On the punctual, prudent and practical Swiss side, no homes were flooded even though the level of the local lake rose a full two metres.

Only the harbour and the (one and only) parking area (it was a village, after all, not a city) next to it got flooded. And the only phone booth (which we foreign students used to call home as cheaply as possible) was also situated in the harbour, meaning we had to wade through thigh-high water to get to it during our last two weeks.

On the Italian side, buildings (including homes) were washed away, and people drowned.

It reminds me of Jamie's American Road Trip, when he went to New Orleans, where people insisted on rebuilding their homes and restaurants and other businesses in exactly the same spot knowing, without doubt, that it would be destroyed again, some time in the future.

As if the heart and soul of New Orleans consists of a geographical place rather than the people that inhabit it?

Sorry, I just can't get it.

I grew up in the Fens, lots of flat land below sea level, but with decent drainage ditches, and flood planes.

Then, in the late 80s some idiot property developers bought the flood planes on the edges of Peterborough because they were really cheap. And then the even more stupid council gave them planning permission to build houses on the flood planes.

The houses weren't cheaper, but they definitely sold.

A couple of years later when rain fall was high they suddenly realised why they *used* to have flood planes. The river banks burst and the flood planes flooded anyway because they were the lowest land.

Several years later, the council sold off more flood planes for housing.

That's what floods look like north of here, at the Danube:
http://images05.oe24.at/melk.jpg/consoleMadonnaNoStretch2/106.051.135
http://images05.kurier.at/46-55814638.jpg/940x540nocrop2/14.608.213

As you can see the town is not new at all, but even the historic towns get flooded regularly now. Usually it happens in August after heavy rainfall and the floods move downstream from Germany through Austria.

I'm living dangerously today. I've had 14 Strepsils when the maximum dose is 12.