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

Luxembourg 4 pm CET

Glorious blue sky and sunshine. Even got to wear my new RayBans today! (present from my imaginary boyfriend)

Very cold, though - about 4 degrees. This morning I was looking down on the most amazing mist in the valley I can see from my appartment.

Seasons greetings to one and all from;

Liaocheng, Shandong Province, China

Cold and dry today, 1 DegC, 7%RH and 1026mbar, clear skies/no fog for a change. Very windy though, so wind chill made being outside rather uncomfortable.

Your correspondent has a flight home booked for 23rd Dec. Now all we have to do is finish the job and hope the local airport is not fogbound, as it was for 3 days this week.

Red - No problems with the query

Zoomer - China does have pollution legislation and they are begining to apply it. It has introduced a set of tarrifs for various pollutants, so producers get hit where it hurts, in the pocket. Having said that, I am not sure if it applies to everyone, we have to comply to meet guarantees but once we leave, well you can imagine what happens.

getting dark after yet another sparkling cold day. heavy frost on the way again tonight. beautiful. all my garden plants were painted with jack frost this morning, well the alpines love it anyway. london 16.09 thing 18 dec.

hope you make it home bob!

Canberra, 8pm 19 December 2003.

About 22C at a guess, after a high of 31C. Birds twittering, cicadas buzzing, drunk people staggering past making odd noises that might have been intended as coherent speech. Ah, summer...

Woolfcub - in need of .

10:04 Midlothian Scotland

Sunny but cold.

Guildford, Surrey, UK

10.53 am. After a run of cold, frosty and sunny days, it has turned milder and damp

I was really hoping for some of that snow forecasted for the N and E Uk, but looks increasingly unlikely now. I know it would be very unusual to get snow this side of January, if at all, but I was hoping none the less. I also know htat those of you who spend months knee deep the stuff will think I'm quite barmy, but snow that actaully lies without melting away within hours is getting to be a rare event here.

7.1ºC
1011.2 hPa, rising.

2003-12-19 10:45 Manchester, UK.
A grey day here in Manchester. Not unusual you might think but it's grey and foggy rather than grey and drizzley which is more usually what we get here.

Newcastle - not a cloud in the sky!

I notice more brits contribute to this thread than any other nationality - what a surprise!

dank and grey - london 11.40, poets, 19 dec

That's because you say I am bragging when I tell you how wonderful the weather in Melbourne, Australia is!

At the moment it is 12.04 am and it is 19C.

Maz

Oh, yes - a thought. Isn't 19 degrees rather warm for winter in London?

Maz

Wythenshae Park, Manchester, 5:00pm: grey and damp during the day, about two or three above zero.

A cold overcast night is beginning.

I'm not normally into ornithology - if it's got wings and flies and sort of hops/stumbles along the ground, it's a bird - but working here has its surprises.

There was a hawk, buzzard, sort of thing sitting in a tree in the grounds of this building earlier - it had a predator's beak, it wasn't big enough to be an eagle, somewhere bigger than a pigeon, but not by very much, and a kind of dun/russetty brown sort of colour. The parellel, if I try to explain the difference between a pigeon and a (Sparrow-hawk? Kestrel?) is that one is a sort of lumbering Douglas Dakota, and the other has a distinctly "fighter aircraft" look to it - you sort of KNOW that one does the hunting and the other is breakfast, dinner, and tea (with maybe enough left over for supper)

So the Park has its birds of prey, which is interesting. (but, I suppose, not surprising).


We also get ravens - I guess an area with its wildlife population will also have its carrion birds, and these are big lumbering black jobbies with a powerful "don't muck with me" aspect to them, and the sort of bumpy, lumpy, thing about their shoulders that looks like a hood pulled down. They're not starlings - too big, and the beak is black rather than yellow - and too big to be crows.

There's a pair (do ravens mate for life?) that fly over the road and patrol our garden.

And night staff here assure me we get bats at night, too.

All this and I get paid for turning up!

a message to cocky maz of melbourne.

As of 21st Dec, 2 days time, your days start getting shorter, and ours start getting longer,, so we may have some tough months ahead, but at least we have hope. We can look forward with renewed optimism; hence christmas is the midwinter fesival. That's why you aussies are so wierd having to celebrate your demise; which reminds me of the rugby world cup final.

Not weird at all. We in Melbourne will celebrate anything!! After all we have a public holiday for a horse race ( Melbourne Cup!).

I believe the English also celebrate Midsummers Day. Yes?

Oh,yes - Saturday 20th 5pm It has been raining most of the day, no wind and is 20C.

Maz

merry christmas maz, you're a sport. sorry to hear about the rain though.

It's raining here too and rather mild for midwinter, 10degrees C, and windy. london 11.18am 20th dec.

Scarborough,North Yorkshire,11.34.
Cold,wet and miserable.

Seasons greetings to one and all.

Saturday 20/12/03, 11:09PM
Sydney, Australia 21C and it was raining earlier.
Praying for people who live near Darwin, Australia because of the Cyclone Debbie, that has just crossed the coast 300km east of them.
Annie

welcome annie; I'll pray too if you think it'll do any good. Can't say praying ever affected the weather though!

Saturday 20th December in Mount Etjo, North Central Namibia was hot. High of about 40c with scattered clouds and hardly any wind.

Sunday 21st in Cape Town is sunny and clear, in the low to mid 20'sC, witha very strong but warm easterly breeze.

"Can't say praying ever affected the weather though!"

I don't know about that... Jesus managed it when he went for a stroll on the Sea Of Galilee, he stopped for a moment, had a word with Dad, and quietened the storm and stilled the waves.

and one of the old boys in the O.T. called down rain, can't recall if it was Isiaiah or Moses.