Confirming suspicions that it's been a wet enough winter, it seems that it's also officially the wettest winter for 250 years. That seems to fit right in with 2013 having had the coldest spring in 50 years and 2012 having being the second wettest on record. There's been no flooding around here but closer to the river things look a little worse. The area between the sign and the fence (not to mention the sign itself) is not supposed to be the river. But now that important conservative party-supporting areas have been flooded too the government has taken notice and sent in the army. It's pretty depressing to hear that despite everything though, attitudes don't change Journalist: So do you think this could be caused by climate change? Vox Pop 1: Nah, this wouldn't have happened if they'd just dredged the rivers.. Vox Pop 2: That climate change thing is just a scam for the politicians to make money off those horrible wind turbines Vox Pop 1: It's impossible to know - sure the climate's always changin', innit? We're doomed.

The clocks go forward this coming weekend for British summertime. Summertime!!? Everyone is still busy freezing our asses off. It was snowing the other day and I bet this Easter weekend I'll see snow again. Nothing to do but stare out at the bald trees and gray sky. Take me back Sydney, all is forgiven.

In an unprecedented move of Australo-philia it seems that they're going to introduce that slightly more modest drinking vessel, the Schooner, into British pubs. I kind of liked them when I first arrived here because it let you get away with ordering less than a pint without ending up with one of those skinny curved glasses that back home would have been laughed at. But I thought the original reason for having them here was to make sure beer was never lingering in a glass long enough to get warm. There's absolutely no chance of that happening in the UK these days. link