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Do we need another ‘Minister for Drought’ ?

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  Editors note: I wheel this blog out periodically when drought threatens to strike again, as it is doing now, despite experiencing one of the wettest winters I can remember in 2025-6. The main problem with our drought resilience is that UK doesn't seem to be able to 'hold its water' nowadays...or is it perhaps we're using too much of the stuff cooling all these new AI data centres ? One way or another, we need a bit of rain....AI won't save us if the raw material in question isn't there to do the job, particularly if its servers overheat due to lack of cooling water. Here's hoping the rain gods will read this and oblige once again, as they did in '76! ------------------- On present evidence, and despite a welcome shower or two over the Early May Bank Holiday weekend (when else would they fall?!), I think we just might….. Those of us old enough to remember the excesses of the 1970s will recall one of the most notable of its meteorological ones - the ‘g...
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Making Soccer Great Again….

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  As someone with a lifelong interest in ‘The Beautiful Game’, I must confess to being somewhat alarmed at a recent rumour emanating from the US concerning possible changes to its rules….particularly since FIFA will be keen to 'keep Trump on side'...while the current tournament is in progress, at least. The problem, as I understand it, is this.  Fresh from his 'triumph' in getting the Iranians to agree a deal ‘The Donald’ seems to have found time in his busy schedule to address the subject of sport reform. He appears to have decided to adopt a flagship campaign to ‘Make Soccer Great Again’ (already christened as MSGA) as a first step in this important aspect of his legacy. According to recent reports, high level discussions last week within the administration concerning promoting the MAGA agenda have apparently spawned a 'Grand Plan' for sports reform, both in the US and worldwide. The start of his administration's campaign was designed to coincide with the ...
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Downloading Video and Audio from YouTube and other Social Media Platforms for Free

   I recently 'discovered ' a useful software package for downloading video and audio content from various social media platforms, including Google's You Tube. It purports to be compatible with a wide range of providers (not exhaustively tested by me). I can confirm it does work with BBC iPlayer, Rumble and Tubi. Unfortunately, it won't work with the free-to view commercial providers' apps (e.g. My5, All 4, ITVX), or any of the subscription-based providers' sites. Anyone wanting to bypass age restriction measures to access some sites will also be disappointed. The yt-dlp software is a revised version of the orirginal yt-dl package, and works best with later versions of Windows (Win 10 onwards). Here is some detailed info reproduced from my website page , which will hopefully help anyone wanting to set the package up on their own pc. You can download the Excel command line compiler from the same page. Setting Up and Using the yt-dlp Video/Audio Downloader Introd...
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UK Local By-Election results as a Barometer of National Political Fortunes

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Making long term predictions about political outcomes nationally is a risky process indeed. In some ways it’s comparable to weather forecasting – the earth’s atmosphere is a chaotic system and trying to predict its behaviour locally more than 2 or 3 days ahead with any degree of accuracy still presents us with many uncertainties, despite all our advances in predictive technology (including even AI!). And we’ve all seen recently how long a week is in politics nowadays, let alone a month, or indeed 3 years - chaos seems to reign there, also. Although 2029 is thus a very long way ahead from a political point of view, and Labour's leadership and cabinet teams will be focused on more immediate policy decisions, the time will (hopefully!) fly by. Labour's advance planners, mindful that the day of reckoning draws ever nearer, will already be thinking hard, and I suspect with some trepidation, about their electoral prospects…and not solely for the next general election. Even the a...
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