The weight of the world upon his shoulders

Just how high is the expectation which has been placed upon this man?

Unless he delivers an economic miracle, world peace and an end to global warming within the next six months, some people are going to label him a failure. It seems like a measure of ex-president Bush's low level of popularity that this fairly inexperienced man (though with a gift for oratory) is treated as the Messiah. One thing on his side is the goodwill he seems to generate, from the grandees of his party to President Ahmadinejad of Iran.

On less worldly matters, I have snowdrops appearing in my garden. I am not however the world's biggest snowdrop fan. I want flowers to signify the begining of Spring, but these seem to appear in mid-Winter and so don't hold the same excitement.

I did a beautiful walk in Wensleydale at the weekend with my godson Jamie and his Dad. We went from Bainbridge to the small lake of Semerwater, a delightful if chilly stroll. I wore a particularly stylish woolly hat, which was roundly mocked by the others until we were walking straight into a cold wind, when I am pleased to report that the mocking turned to envy.

Killing the trees?

I am suffering a bit of back ache today, brought on partly by my advancing years but mainly by the fact that I spent most of yesterday pulling up birch and willow saplings from a wild flower meadow at Otley Wetlands nature reserve, picture below. It often seems strange that much conservation work involves pulling up or cutting down. The reality is that to maintain a diversity of habitats you need to stop invasive species taking over. This is the second year I have been involved in this task and am looking forward to visiting in the summer and seeing the orchids and other species which inhabit the reserve.


Continuing today's flowery theme, I planted some bulbs in my tiny garden back in October, and I am pretty excited to relate that they have started to come up. I am hoping for a riot of Spring colours in a few weeks.

Paint it white to save the planet

There were two interesting articles in the generally excellent G2 section of The Guardian today, both of which seemed to capture the zeitgeist but in very differing ways.

First there was an article concerning one of the so-called geo-engineering solutions to global warming, though one which sounded eminently sensible compared to some of the other suggestions. The idea was to paint all roofs white, to increase reflection and reduce absorption of solar energy. It seems such a simple concept that it is surprising that it has not received more publicity. It was pointed out in the article that this was not a solution to global warming; it did nothing to reduce CO2 emissions, and so was more of a temporary mitigator. Even so, given some of the more extreme consequences of global warming that have been suggested, a bit of temporary mitigation would be very welcome.

You can read a summary of the full article here, highly recommended.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/jan/16/ethicalliving-climatechange

The second article was a brief piece concerning the acceptance speech given by Kate Winslet on receiving some worthless gong the other night. For those who did not hear her, she went for the worst kind of Paltrow-esque faux-excitement and pretending to be overcome. This is not something which has increased my respect for her. Without wishing to philosophise, I do wish that people would keep things like winning such awards in perspective; I think that failure to do so shows a rather narrow world view.

Again no relevant photo, so you will have to make do with this shot of your correspondent descending into the valley of Littondale, North Yorkshire.

Work, PE and Penyghent

I had a bad attack of work-fear last night; the idea of returning to the office after a fairly stimulating two weeks was complete anathema. In reality the problem was all in my perception, work was fine (even rewarding) and it was good to see everyone again. If I had a pound for every time I worried about something so inconsequential I could lead a one-man consumer boom and bring the world economy back to rude health.

I went to the gym this evening and the New Year’s resolution crowd were there in their hundreds, all in new PE kit with little idea of what to do. It is certain that by mid February they will almost all be gone and it will be the same regulars that I see each week. I struggled through what should have been a fairly easy rowing session; not a good sign only five weeks from my first indoor rowing event of the season in Manchester.

It strikes me that the above entries don’t lend themselves to photos, so here for your delectation is a charming shot of Penyghent in the Yorkshire Dales on a cold and snowy morning a few weeks ago.