Bookies should thank Piers Corbyn

If one goes to the homepage of weatheraction.com right now then you can see these words from Piers Corbyn "Storms and floods 12th & 13th December 'stunning success' for WeatherAction", followed by more words of self congratulation. Unfortunately for Piers the whole effect is ruined by the following near the top and in larger font: "Xmas Eve - Major storm; Xmas Day - Snow!" Ahem, "Major storm ... Snow" - I don't think so Piers!! And he had been forecasting another of his storms for the end of the month - it's not happening Piers!

We have been, and still are, under the influence of a large anticyclone, what meteorologists refer to as a 'blocking high'. Good name as it blocks areas of low pressure trying to come in off the Atlantic. What we have here is another example of Piers painting a totally wrong scenario, not just something slightly wrong in detail. And of course this anticyclone has been affecting the whole country i.e. I'm looking at the big picture not just Devon and Cornwall.

With Piers it's so difficult to deduce that his methods work when his forecasts do turn out to be accurate if other forecasts by him for nearby time periods are so terribly terribly wrong. Thinking about December for a moment there is a very good chance of getting a bad storm affecting a large part of the country at some stage and the one mid month Piers is taking credit for is one such. Now hold on a moment, didn't Piers flag up six possible storms for December? He is allowing himself a tolerance of + or - one day in the timing of the storm (fair enough in my opinion) so any one storm could occur on any one of three days. Multiplying 3 by 6 is 18 according to me and any one day out of 18 for a 31 day month aren't bad odds in my opinion! So here's the question about the forecast by Piers for the storm on 12th/13th: did his techniques work or did he just strike lucky?

Finally, why I decided to use the title "Bookies should thank Piers Corbyn" can be deduced from a link to the 'Daily Star' from the 'Latest News' page on the WeatherAction website. The media story quotes Piers saying the following: "Our advice to beat the credit crunch is to place a bet on a white Christmas because it's never looked more likely". The bookies had stood to lose a lot of money (not only because of Piers it has to be said) but are now smiling after a good Christmas for them.

Piers was full of himself getting some bad weather correctly forecast much earlier in the month. Will he now publicly apologise for his wrong advice to those who bet on a white Christmas?

Why Piers Corbyn gets so much space

When I started this blog I didn't have rigid ideas about all the subjects that I was likely to write about. I didn't doubt that the weather would feature now and again - like most folk in the UK for me it's an ever present talking point. In my case I have a particular liking for being in the fresh air, natural phenomena are always fascinating and I can't remember a time when I haven't been absorbed by an interest in our variable weather.

Somehow therefore I seem to have been destined to comment on the forecasts from Piers Corbyn of weatheraction.com. Piers is particularly famous (or infamous) for making weather projections up to a year ahead in time, something I don't think any other forecaster would try and do. What's more Piers was supposedly having marked success with his techniques. This whole business fascinated me and I decided to take note of how his prophecies were turning out in practice. My observations demonstrated to me that Piers was in actual fact making many awful blunders and that his forecasts weren't anything like as good as some would have you believe. I have finished up making a lot of entries showing just how wide of the mark he has been.

Lately some of Mr Corbyn's disciples have come to his defence in the comments on this blog and I have to say I welcome those attacking what I write - it makes for an invigorating read and acts as a check on any personal bias I have. However for those challenging me I need to clear up certain points. Firstly, because I criticise Piers on the outcome of his forecasts it does not mean I necessarily disagree with him on the subject of man made climate change. For the record I'm neither an adherent or denier so far as that is concerned, I just do not have sufficient in depth knowledge to come down on one side or the other. Let's be honest, 99.99% of the population just go with some sort of gut feeling on the subject. No it's not climate change but weather on which I cross swords with Piers. Secondly, it's been pointed out that Piers will normally attach a particular confidence level to his predictions (so many %) so he is saying in effect that none of these things may actually occur! Thirdly, I've been taken to task for not having a go at the Met Office and others who perhaps so far as longer term forecasts are concerned are no better than Piers. Regarding this last point it's the arrogance that Piers displays and reluctance to admit he can be wrong that really grates with me and perhaps this is why I seem to have him in my sights so often. I guess that I've written as much as anyone else in the Blogosphere about Piers!

I'm going to make a separate entry about the totally wrong forecast from Piers regarding the Christmas just past but am asking myself whether or not to spend time repeatedly blogging about him in future. By scrolling down through the subjects on the right hand side of this blog you can find the entries I've made with his name tag and I feel that I've well and truly made my point. If time were of no consequence I would love to buy all his monthly forecasts and then produce a totally separate blog shadowing what he says will happen. Unfortunately there are only 24 hours in one day! So it may be I'll give him a rest for now.

Very odd statement from Liverpool FC

Readers of this blog will know that I don't normally do sport or celebrities in my entries. So I wouldn't usually be concerned with the story about Liverpool captain and England footballer Steven Gerrard as something I would comment on. Gerrard has been charged with assault and affray following a disturbance at a Southport nightclub. What happens now will be down to the courts but it's not the alleged offence that I wish to write about.

Liverpool Football Club have issued a statement which includes the words "Steven has been an outstanding servant to Liverpool for the last 10 years and the club will give him all the support he needs at this time." What a very very odd thing to say ... "give him all the support he needs". He is charged with a serious offence and the club should surely take a non committal stance until the process of justice takes place. Innocent until proved guilty, yes. And maybe therefore no reason why he shouldn't train and play as normal until at least the court case comes up. But giving him all the support he needs seems to imply that he is a wronged individual or that he deserves to have the club find him a top barrister.

I have to wonder if a lesser player in the same predicament who had served this club for a similarly long time would have received the same backing.

Good rail journeys over Christmas

Well he we are in that strange no-mans-land between Christmas and New Years Day, a time in the UK at least that always feels odd to me, a time when I have to really think about what day of the week it is, a time when I want to get the so overrated New Years Eve out of the way. I've said before on this blog that I have no interest in New Years Eve celebrations - I'm very sensitive to the seasons and the way nature changes with them but when it comes to the totally artificial construct of the start of the New Year what is the point? Other than a rather weak excuse for people to get drunk!

Anyway this wasn't going to be the subject of this blog post! I was just going to make a comment on how much I enjoyed travelling this Christmas. I don't reckon to do a vast amount of travelling outside my two counties but it's more likely to happen at Christmas, meeting family and all that. Being able to get a lift from Salisbury station to my ultimate Dorset destination I let the 'train take the strain' and was pleased with what the train companies provided.

First leg on Christmas Eve was on the Tamar Valley line. There seems to be an ever present affection for this branch and rightly so of course! In this instance I found myself sitting opposite someone I knew and we chatted all the way to Plymouth. She made the observation that "people must think I'm mad liking public transport" (although she does drive as well). "No reason to think that at all" was my rejoinder on that one. For me using the train at this time was not only better environmentally but made the trip out my area even more of a special occasion. From Plymouth it was on to the 'Cornish Riviera' express for the non stop leg of my journey to Exeter. First Great Western had a leaflet in a pocket on the back of the seat in front regarding train safety which one was invited to read. Showing diagrammatically the arrangements of the various coaches I had to chuckle seeing what would have once been 'The Guards Van' now renamed 'The Train Controllers Office'.

A change at Exeter St Davids and onto the 'South West Trains' line that ultimately goes to Waterloo. Not only was there a computerised female voice to say what station we were approaching, what station we arrived at, and what the next stop was going to be but this info was automatically shown on a couple of overhead displays in each coach. During the other 99% of the journey the current time would be on displayed. A nice system I thought. As each station was passed its name would be dropped by the voice which showed a bit of sophistication in the system. This old 'Southern Line' is single tracked in places and so the we were held up for a while (near Tisbury I think) to allow the opposite direction train to pass through. The whole journey was uneventful and mostly on time apart from a minute or two slippage at Salisbury.

The return trip on Saturday was even more straightforward as there was no change to be made at Exeter. In fact a station announcement pointed out that one could change at Exeter onto a faster train to Plymouth, ours stopped at most of the intermediate stations. This wouldn't have really helped me as it would not have made an earlier connection to Gunnislake than my scheduled one. One or two comments on this longer section of the return journey might be pertinent here. The information system on the train which I had so praised earlier seemed to be on the blink here, sometimes in evidence sometimes not. We stopped for several minutes at Dawlish Warren for the previously mentioned fast train to overtake. The reason for the delay and the fact that it wouldn't affect our arrival time at Plymouth was explained, in fact we were right on time when we got to Plymouth Station. So ten out of ten on getting that bit of communication sorted out so well. What surprised me a little though was the fact that the London bound train on Christmas Eve had a trolley service which seemed to be well patronised but that the one coming back didn't have this facility. I was OK having had sandwiches provided by my Christmas hosts but was a little bemused by this lack of trolley service on a train whose timetable spanned the normal lunch period.

About an hour wait at Plymouth for my Tamar Valley train so ample time to get a paper and a pint of milk. There had been a large time gap in services to Gunnislake in the afternoon. However the recently introduced new timetable has given us an extra train and with the times spread more evenly. It wasn't so long ago that there was real concern about the branch lines in Devon and Cornwall continuing as they were but they seem to have gained a new lease of life.

One hears fewer concerns now about reliability and punctuality on the railways. I really believe that the rail companies are getting their act together and that public confidence in the system will continue to grow.

Happy Christmas

Lots and lots of things I would like to have blogged about before Christmas but no time left!

So just want to wish anyone who reads my ramblings a very Happy Christmas!

This driver should have been banned for ever

One of the things that really really irks me about the legal system in this country is the fact that someone can commit some relatively minor offence and then receive a disproportionately harsh punishment whilst another person does something that demands the stiffest of penalties and gets off relatively lightly. In other words there is not nearly enough differentiation between the two.

Looking at the Sky News site on the net one of their breaking news stories is regarding a Czech lorry driver who at the wheel of his 40 tonne juggernaut rammed cars that were in his way on the M1. Three drivers were left with whiplash, cars were seriously damaged but fortunately nobody was killed. The Czech was convicted of dangerous driving and criminal damage: he was sentenced to 15 months in jail and banned for three years. Why for heavens sake only three years? This wasn't a case of someone falling asleep at the wheel, which in itself would be grave enough, but it would seem a deliberately malicious act. Surely we shouldn't let that sort of person ever drive again on our roads. Extreme of me you might think, I say not - there are certain times when you have to go to the ultimate so bad is the offence.

Regarding foreign lorry drivers in this country it has been suggested that European drivers aren't all tested to the same HGV standard as the British ones. If this is true then this is something else that's very wrong with the EU. Instead of devoting so much time to totally unnecessary legislation why doesn't Brussels try and ensure a more consistent standard of HGV driving tests in the different states. Answers on a postcard please ...

Wassailing and a village pantomime

Yesterday proved very enjoyable for me, not Christmas Shopping, not watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' but attending two pleasing local events. In the morning I picked up three members of 'The Rubber Band' (two flautists and one ukulele player) and we set off for Cotehele House. Following on from the wonderful work done by artist Mary Martin and her partner James Armstrong Evans in preserving the old apple varieties of the Tamar Valley a 'Mother Orchard' has been created on the Cotehele Estate to follow on from what Mary and James have achieved. This has led to the old custom of wassailing taking place annually at the orchard.

So what is 'wassailing' you may ask. The process will vary slightly according to local custom but in essence it's all about waking up the trees and frightening any evil spirits away. Congregating near the main house a procession of I would think several dozen wended its way through the upper garden to the orchards at the top of the estate. We were led by the 'oss, a local lady dressed inside a horse type costume, followed by 'The Rubber Band' members and friends playing in their usual inimitable fashion and many others wanting to share the fun. And fun it was. Hilary, the town crier for our Parish, said (or shouted) out a welcome to one and all, there was a wassail song to sing, and incantations to repeat at the oldest and youngest tree. At the end of the incantations everyone was invited to make the greatest racket possible to frighten away any evil spirits: so there was much thumping of drums, blowing of whistles, clashing of biscuit tins, banging of dustbin lids and anything else to add to the din! Oh and apple juice was gently poured round these two trees to hopefully encourage a good crop - think I've got that right! More music as the procession returned to the House.

It was good to see photographers from at least two of our local press in attendance. Afterwards one of our flautists had to head off for Calstock Church to bell ring for a wedding but I still had two musicians with me - Liz played her ukulele in the car on the way home, much better than listening to a radio!

A very quick stop for a sandwich at home and then we were off to the popular village pantomime at Bere Ferrers. This year it was 'Little Red Riding Hood', my companion knows several of those involved in this production and my not having been to any sort of pantomime since ... well I really don't know when, I was very happy to do something different. Bere Ferrers is a small community tucked away at the bottom end of the deep peninsula that separates the Tamar and Tavy rivers and is a wonderful example of being relatively untouched, of retaining its character, of having a good community spirit. This panto illustrated the last point very well, one telling feature was the fact that the youngest cast member was just 4 years old, the oldest over 90!

Whether it's playing live music, acting out a pantomime or running a marathon, these are all examples of pursuits where your status or your wealth start to become irrelevant. As such all such activities are to be applauded in my book. Whilst it is fair to say one shouldn't be too parochial (I have been guilty of this on occasion) I do think it's so important to actively support what is happening in your own local area to some degree.

I have to say it was a very rewarding day - the first wassail I've attended and the first panto I've seen probably for decades. Yes an excellent days entertainment.

Piers Corbyn - an apology from me

On Monday 15 December I made a blog entry under the title "Bad weather NOT forecast by Piers Corbyn". This was in relation to the extreme weather we had just suffered in particular the deluge that occurred in East Devon and Somerset with people being rescued from cars stuck in the floods. Very nasty although here we were relatively unscathed. Usually I try to be forensic in my analysis but this time I failed. I used the very brief summary forecast on the weatheraction.com homepage to make my comment about Piers. What I should have noted in this particular instance is that not all the storms that were in his detailed forecast had been brought forward to his homepage and this event appears to have been one of those occasions. So an unreserved apology from me for my lax reporting.

From the Wright Brothers to Heathrow

It's not unusual for me to wake early and if this happens I will as often as not listen to 'News Briefing' at 5.30 on Radio4. For some reason I very often go back into a deep sleep thereafter and this morning was a case in point with me not getting out of bed till about half past eight. Oh how I miss that daily commute! Not.

Back to 'News Briefing'. Each day there is a rundown on the news headlines, weather forecast, review of the newspapers, business and sport reports. If I'm sufficiently with it I get a fair idea of what is happening in the wider world. Right at the end of 'News Briefing' a minute or two is devoted to noting significant events in former years of which that date is an anniversary. This can be quite interesting and one example on this morning's programme was the fact of the first flight by the Wright brothers on 17 December 1903 i.e. exactly 105 years ago. (More about the Wright Brothers in Wikipedia here). It's quite extraordinary how far aviation has come in such a short time.

This all brings me on to ... Heathrow Airport. Today right of centre blogger Iain Dale has had another go at Theresa Villiers, the Tory shadow on Transport, who firmly nailed her party's colours to the mast in opposing a third runway at London's main airport. Mr Dale doesn't beat about the bush - he is firmly agin the Tories on this one. It transpires now that certain government ministers are going cool on the extra runway proposal, there's even a suggestion it should be put to the vote in the House of Commons. Personally I hope that it doesn't go ahead, I know that Heathrow is running at almost full capacity but expanding the facility just seems so fundamentally wrong. Local residents have suffered far too much already and the thought of, and please God it never happens, a mid air incident above the airport in such a built up area doesn't bear thinking about.

One of the outcomes of the rapidly deteriorating value of sterling against other currencies, particularly the Euro, is the fact that holidays abroad suddenly got a lot more expensive. Significant numbers of people jet off to sunnier climes for Christmas and I suspect many will still do this next week as a goodly proportion of them would have booked long ago before the credit crisis really took hold. But what will happen in 2009? Will a lot more UK residents suddenly realise that yes this country has a lot to offer and, assuming petrol prices stay down, a holiday in the home country could look like a very attractive option. After the last two wet summers you would think that a better one should be on the cards too. As a nation holidays are very important to us and are one of the last things we would wish to do without. Tourism in my two counties just might benefit a little next year providing operators maintain reasonable prices.

The worrying low value of the pound could have a silver lining and of course we might attract more foreign holidaymakers to our shores as well!

Cigarettes under counter in Queens Speech

I've railed before about the absurd proposal to make shopkeepers put their tobacco products out of sight under the counter (go to the topic column on the right and click "smoking" for my thoughts on the subject). Just so that there is no doubt I'll say again that I don't smoke, never have done and hate the thought of it. But now that the matter has resurfaced as part of the recent 'Queens Speech' I shall have to let rip again.

Above a certain age it is perfectly legal to smoke so why is it in anyway acceptable to tell a retailer that he or she cannot display cigarettes openly. It is legal to sell them or it isn't, there's no half and half situation here, that to me is as plain as daylight. As I've noted before excess alcohol consumption can ruin your health and in the worse case scenario can lead to premature death so why are the supermarkets allowed to have their booze on public display? I've pointed out too the impracticality of keeping the fags below the counter in a busy retail environment and the cost to the shopkeeper in preparing for this nonsense legislation.

We are told that the new law will apply first to supermarkets and then to the small shops and I believe that it was Lord Mandelson who came up with the idea that small businesses shouldn't suffer initially. That bit might sound a decent concession but is it? My argument on that aspect is that how do you define a supermarket - a huge number of small shops are laid out on the supermarket principle and many of them are in groupings like Mace and Spar. So will they be included in the first group to be affected by the new law? As usual not thought through.

I have been trying to think of any precedent in this country to this draconian legislation. Now I don't know now whether it was a new law or something akin to a Code of Practice but some might point out that the magazines banned to the 'top shelf' could be an example of something similar. Not at all because whether one agrees or not about soft porn magazines being sold they are still on open display and the retailer hasn't incurred extra costs. The other one is solvents, I've no idea whether glue sniffing and suchlike is still prevalent among young people but I think that it's mandatory for ID to be produced or at least I've seen individual stores with notices to that effect.

As I mentioned in a previous rant there are specialist tobacconists about - I can think of a well known one in Exeter - what are they supposed to do? I know that the health police will point out that Canada has already gone down the route of keeping tobacco products under cover but that doesn't make it any more right. Back to my original argument: tobacco is either legal or illegal, it is as simple as that.

Bad weather NOT forecast by Piers Corbyn

It was a week ago when I last blogged about the latest forecast by Piers Corbyn of Weatheraction.com. Piers reckoned we would get a storm that weekend, he was as usual totally wrong. No prophecy was made on his website of the very poor weather we experienced in the southwest over this most recent weekend. The heavy rain led to very bad conditions on the roads and curtailment of some rail journeys. East Devon and Somerset were particularly affected and sadly an elderly gent in the latter county lost his life when his car was trapped in the floodwater. I'm not aware of any properties getting flooded locally but the Tamar burst its banks, making the riverside path impassable in places. The Tamar has a habit of rising and falling very quickly and with a full moon the other day we now have spring tides which doesn't help.

On the summary page on the Weatheraction website the next storm of note is around Christmas Eve. Will Piers manage to get it right this time?

A cracking concert yesterday evening

I've written about both 'The Calstock Singers' and 'Under the Fingers' before (revision time: 'Under the Fingers' are 4 of our local talented instrumentalists who between them play recorders, cello, harp and guitar). They combined last night to delight their audience with 'More Mulled Music', a Christmas Concert at the Peterloo Poets hall in Calstock. Three friends and yours truly arrived early and were able to bag seats in the front row this time. The programme started at 7.30 and with a half hour break in the middle continued through to 10 o'clock. When I reported on the three previous concerts they performed at this venue I was full of praise for them but there was always the thought "can they keep this incredible standard going" knowing that they had to look at a new programme each time. No need to worry, as ever they were on absolutely cracking form! By the way when I say "three previous concerts" I mean the last three, the ones I saw, because I have a feeling that they may have performed there previously - must check on this sometime.

So far as the instrumentalists were concerned there were a few variations this time: while waiting for the concert to start a clarinetist whose name unfortunately eludes me played some gentle music from up in the gallery, in some of the items Rosie did some drumming in addition to playing her more usual recorders and guitar, there was more accompaniment than before from Nicola on the Xylophone (though sadly no 'Tamar Broom Dance' or 'Tico Tico' from her - I love its sound as a solo instrument), and we had Peter, new to these concerts, playing the piano. As ever Liz and Jenny were there playing guitar and harp in their usual brilliant manner and Pauline was alternating between conducting the choir and playing her electric cello.

One or two comments on the singing now: we had Cliff and Nicola combining together to sing 'The Final Barge' one of the pieces from 'The Song of the Tamar', their voices blended beautifully in this lovely song and I hope we shall see them duetting together in future. I have to say that Cliff is one of the larger members of the choir and Nicola the smallest but with Cliff sitting down and Nicola standing head height wasn't too different! There was a very funny Cornish take on 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' and a few dance steps ably performed by our MC Richard and two of the ladies in the choir at the end of 'The Woodcutter's Song'. Richard as usual kept proceedings ticking along gently and his jokes are as awful as ever. Once again performers and audience were indebted to Harry Chambers for the use of the 'Peterloo Poets' building and Harry read four short poems during the course of the evening. I should have mentioned too the brief appearances from Rob adding extra comedy twists to the proceedings as well as demonstrating what a fine singing voice he has.

There was a raffle in aid of that most worthy of charities 'Shelterbox' which in my book is the nearest thing yet devised to the perfect relief organisation. When the first two tickets drawn were those bought by members of the Singers we were joking that something funny was going on but then members of the audience started winning prizes so that was all right then! I don't recall the exact figure raised but it was certainly in excess of £100. As usual we could avail ourselves of a glass of mulled wine and a delicious mince pie, all included in the ticket price of just £5.

Now if I only I had known I could have stayed at home and watched the final of 'The X Factor' - I'm jesting of course. As with 'Strictly Come Dancing' I've never watched the ITV alternative on Saturday evenings. I did have a quick look today on the internet at a video of the lady who won on this TV show so that I can be a little informed. I'm sure that she's very talented in many people's eyes but for me such offerings can't in any way be compared with the marvellous show I was privileged to witness in Calstock yesterday evening.

I'll just add a couple of links here and here for Peterloo Poets and Shelterbox. Finally if you live in the Calstock area and would like to join The Calstock Singers they resume their rehearsals on Monday evenings in January (starting at 7.30 pm) at The Old Chapel in Sand Lane.

In support of Posties

There was a piece on the news last night about what was alleged as being new onerous demands on our postmen and postwomen. Their union maintain that the posties are being told to walk at 4 mph on their rounds, not so say Royal Mail - we are asking them to average 2.1 mph. Now both sides can't both be right, or can they? It could be that they have to walk at 4 mph along the street as there will be a lot of stopping to put letters in boxes and get parcels signed for thus bringing the average for the shift for the shift to a much lower figure - 2.1 even. I don't know.

What seems to be happening is that Royal Mail are using some computer software called 'Pegasus' to work out optimal routes for our posties. Not a bad idea it might be thought but here's the thing, Pegasus comes from Canada and I can pretty well guarantee that the way post is delivered over there bears almost no resemblance to how it happens in the UK. For a start a Canadian won't expect mail to be delivered to his front door, no it's a box at the gate at best. And typically their postmen won't be going up hill and down dale and contending with steps and snappy dogs as ours do. So has Pegasus been modified to take account of the huge number of variables that exist in this country. Possibly but it wouldn't surprise in the slightest if it hadn't.

On the BBC News website folk were invited to "Have Your Say" on the subject and didn't they do just that with huge numbers emailing in. I tried to absorb quite a bit of this to add to my own observations on the local scene as it were. A number of those commenting were relatives of posties and many of these pointed out the bullying by managers prevalent in parts of the mail service. Admittedly they in turn are frequently under pressure from those above them but I have to say that I have absolutely no time for bullying in the workplace. Time and time again those at the sharp end and getting least pay are getting flak from the end customer and not being supported by their managers. I accept that there might be the occasional indolent postie that needs to be chased a bit but almost all the 'career' postmen and women do an absolutely brilliant job. Management have to get into their fat heads that there is an upper practical limit to the amount our posties can do (and health and morale are really important as well) and if the 4 mph speed asked for is true then it is totally ridiculous to demand that a person carrying bags of mail in all weathers should adhere to this. Added to that there are packages to be signed for and this all adds to the time. Many stories too about managers who have never graduated through the system and therefore don't really know what it's like to do a round. This wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Thinking about things here I have to say that my postman is cheerful, reliable and pretty well always gets it right. Interestingly and coincidentally today's 'Western Morning News' has a piece by one of their reporters, accompanying a postwoman based on the Honiton sorting office as she drives her rural round.

One final point to round off this piece: I referred earlier to 'career' posties; we are fortunate here to have regulars but I believe in some cities it's difficult to get the permanent staff they need and so they employ a certain number of agency workers and it's possible that deliveries are a little less reliable in such circumstances. Another plus for living in the country!

Stargazy pie and commonsense policing

I think that I have said before that occasionally I will watch 'The One Show' on BBC1 and tonight by chance happened to be one of those times. It was really pleasing to see a feature on 'Stargazy Pie', one of those dishes I would love to try sometime. For the uninitiated it is a Cornish Dish, a pastry topped fish pie with five different types of seafish in it plus, and this makes it so different, pilchards with their heads and tails sticking up out of the top of the pie. It is traditionally eaten on Tom Bawcock's Eve in Mousehole down in the far west of the county. The day of the celebration is December 23rd when the story goes Tom Bawcock came back to the village with his boat laden with fish at a time of great hardship and famine in Mousehole. I think they did a pretty good job on the show telling the story and some nice shots inside 'The Ship Inn' there and of the village's spectacular Christmas lights around the harbour.

Another piece on the programme that interested me was about the fact that a few police forces (four I think they said) are trialling what was described as 'commonsense policing'. In a nutshell rather than automatically charging someone for a low level crime with the associated ridiculous amount of bureaucracy police on the street were able to use their discretion. An example was the case of a young lad pinching a bottle of perfume from a shop as a present for his girlfriend. He was caught and the store concerned were happy not to press charges as the bottle was returned and the young thief wrote a letter of apology for what he had done. At long last a bit of commonsense had been applied! Rather than being totally target driven the idea is to let those at the sharp end use their own judgement and by so doing free up an enormous amount of otherwise unproductive police time. This chasing of targets in the public services is something I get very steamed up about: I know just how creative certain people can be in doing things just to get the boxes ticked and with the police it's stupid to be driven entirely by meeting your clear up quota and number of arrests. When the government talk about crime levels falling I'm totally sceptical - I think that it's a known fact for instance that some people won't report a crime to the police, particularly if it's relatively minor, because they don't have any confidence in them turning up.

Going back to the rest of the programme actress Kate Winslet was the star on the sofa and she was talking about her recent films and there was some film footage too of reindeer stags rutting in The Cairngorms. All in all some interesting viewing.

Piers wrong - no storm this weekend

If you follow this blog regularly you will know that I have often criticised weather forecaster Piers Corbyn, one of the better known deniers of man-made global warming. It's not on that issue that I berate him in these jottings, it's the monthly forecasts he puts out that gets me going. He had a very, very bad October in which he was wrong in every single respect; November was a little better and I gave him 3 out of 10 for that one - slightly generous perhaps, spreading a little bit of my Christmas spirit and all that!

In his December summary Piers lists his anticipated storm periods and says the timings could be + or - one day. Fair enough I guess. Today is the seventh and Piers has 6 to 8 December (with the plus or minus one day tolerance) as one of these times of storm. In fact he goes further and reckons we would get bashed by two such events, one on the sixth and the other two days later. Just in case it hasn't been noticed there has been glorious sunshine over the south west this weekend: a nice ridge of high pressure has lain over the south of Britain, 'up north' it may not have been so good but they certainly haven't had Piers' promised storm over this period. A front is moving south over the country (we are supposed to get it tomorrow afternoon) but it looks to be a relatively innocuous affair, not a feature that would merit the word 'storm' that's for sure.

So not good for Piers this time. His next major weather event flagged up is for a storm on the 23 to 24 December (he always has something dramatic to give us for Christmas!!) and then snow on Christmas Day itself. On the 'Weatheraction.com' website there is an article reproduced from the 'Daily Star' in which Piers apparently made the comment "We are 75% sure that there will be snow in many - but not all - locations offered by bookies this Christmas" and goes on to say "Our advice to beat the credit crunch is to place a bet on a white Christmas because it's never looked more likely". Now I've looked at the William Hill website and they evidently take separate bets on snow at Aberdeen, Glasgow, Cardiff and London falling during the 24 hours of Christmas Day, I suspect that the other bookies do the same. Will Piers be right this time? He can't always get it wrong! I shall either be praising him or lambasting him before the end of the month. Whatever the odds presented I won't be placing any bets but it seems that a lot of money has already been staked.

First motorway and trunk dialling 50 years old

As the years roll by it is all too easy to forget the speed at which changes have taken place in the UK particularly as regards communication, in both the transport and telephony senses. This was really brought home to me listening to the 'Today' programme on Radio4 this morning because exactly 50 years ago the Queen calling from Bristol was the first person to use the subscriber trunk dialling system or STD as it was then known. This technology enabled long distance phone calls to be made without going through the operator. Wow! In this case, recorded and filmed for posterity, the Queen spoke to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh - I think he was rather expecting the call! There was some lovely black and white footage on the BBC news website and the Queen of course was holding what by today's standards was a big heavy phone. I remember them! Of course it was quite some time before this facility was available for those living in Salcombe, my home town.

Coincidentally the six o'clock news this evening reminded us that it was fifty years ago that Britain's first motorway was opened - the Preston ByPass. I wonder how many folk are under the illusion that it was the M1 that was finished first; this would be a good question for a pub quiz. Again some black and white footage shown, how motoring has changed, cars without seat belts, airbags or side impact bars - how did we ever survive those years.

I have to say that I was quite taken back that two such significant events had happened at the same time, something I was totally unaware of. They say you learn something new every day!