101 days ago
I now feel a bit of a wuss writing this as my pal Darren sends photos of the snow in Canada outside his rural retreat where it is minus 17 degrees. I am not sure if it will snow here in North Wales next week. My kids hope it does and so do I as if there is even a light dusting of global warming, the Marxist Madrassa where the Mrs works will shut down and we will enjoy her company all week. But I do know that it will be cold by Welsh standards and that an alternative to switching on all our hugely expensive gas radiators is to run a fire in the main living room where folks can snuggle up and watch mid rot on the telly.. And that brings me to my birthday present to myself, in the first photo below, a heavy splitting axe.
408 days ago
Here in the last village in Wales the snow has been falling for a couple of hours. On the grassy bank outside my kitchen there is, perhaps, half an inch of global warming. On the road down to my house and other roads in the village it is yet to settle at all. But, quelle surprise, the village school has already cited ef ‘n’ safey reasons for a full shutdown.
440 days ago
On January 6 the BBC sent a reporter to Torgen to show a ski resort devoid of snow and warned that an entire industry was being killed off by man made global warming. That was, of course, fake news as I demonstrated here on 24 January by when the website onthesnow.co.uk showed 66% of Swiss reports open for ski-ing. Now guess what?
457 days ago
Today the skiing in Scotland has been stopped because there is too much snow. Will the BBC and the reast of the Mainstream Media GroupThink put that down to global warming and or climate change too? But what about those snow deprived resorts in Europe which the BBC has reported on with so much glee of late. More global warming vicar?
463 days ago
The pictures below show the elevated lawn and Ha Ha and the fields this morning at the Welsh Hovel. As you can see it snowed last night, there is about half an inch on the ground. And the fields are completely flooded. It is a wonderful view and shows my flood defences holding firm. But it prompts two thoughts.
485 days ago
One of the many things that those inside the global warming GroupThink cult are unable to explain is why we should believe 30-50 year forecasts about climate change when the ones made 20 years ago have already been proved to be utterly wrong. It is as if we based our response to covid on the work of Professor Ferguson whose forecasts of hundreds of thousands of deaths from avian bird flu, swine fever, etc had proved so completely bogus. Oh, we did because“experts” inside the GroupThink are always right… but back to global warming.
738 days ago
When he was alive, this was an annual ritual. Now Christopher Booker is in a better place, there is no reason for this to stop. The photo is of climate change, or rather, the lack of it, here in Southern Greece.
751 days ago
Joshua and I drove in my battered old Belingo to pick up Jaya from her nursery among the infidels in England yesterday as it was bitterly cold, far too cold to walk. As we arrived the skies seemed to visibly darken and I felt even colder. I remarked on this to a mother waiting for her little darling and almost at once the skies opened spitting out big lumps of snow. Joshua got out of the van in excitement and left his door open so within three minutes his seat was covered in global warming. But by the time we had reached the bridge back to Wales the storm was over.
889 days ago
As I have noted previously, as we observe extreme cold in Russia and China, in “The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, an admrable libertarian but now like most dead white authors now officially a racist, nature warns the Ingalls family that the “extreme weather” occurring without man made carbon emmisions will be brutal. So what is in store for the UK this year?
892 days ago
Man-made carbon emissions are causing the world to get warmer and we must act now if we are to restrict that growth to 1.5% or 2.5% or whatever. So say the cultists after jetting back from COP26. These are, of course, the same cultists who warned us in 1988 that the Maldives would be under water by 2010, that within a few years of 2000 kids would ever see snow again, etc, etc, etc. We can discuss whether climate change – which has always happened – is caused by man made carbon emissions with reference to the Medieval warm period or the Maunder Minimum at another point although if you want to pass Geography GCSE these days such discussions are not recommended. Those who set the curriculum, the BBC, wretched Boris Johnson and others say that the science is settled so do not mention temperatures in 1200 or you are a vile denier one step removed from those operating the holocaust death camps. In that vein…
1169 days ago
Our esteemed IT genius Darren says that there are so many pictures of my garden in badgerland Wales, the latest going up last night, and that my bleatings about snow stopping play are so pathetic that we should post a picture of his garden in the socialist paradise of Canada this morning. Okay.
I have to admit that Darren does seem to have a bit more snow to deal with than I have. The global warming is everywhere and has even frozen the vast river at the bottom of the garden. Don’t tell Greta! It is, I concede, a spectacular garden view.
1186 days ago
It snowed overnight and well into the morning here at the Hovel and thus even the public sector worker, the Mrs, was stirred to get out of bed reasonably early for, as you can see below, a game of snowballs. Yes she is carrying a baby while pelting Joshua. Then, for Joshua, it was sledging on the top meadow. Though not deep, the snow was good enough to allow the pest a good few long slides but not to go as far as the floods which still cover the near part of the bottom fields as well as the fields on the other side of the river in England.
1189 days ago
As he sits fishing through a hole cut into the ice covering the river in front of his house in Canada, my colleague Darren Atwater describes what you see below as just “weather”. He forgets the thrill that we folks in the Old Country feel when we get the slightest sign of snow falling. So it was as I was putting Joshua to bed…
1202 days ago
Someone asked what the big box under the Christmas tree was. It was a sledge for 4-year-old Joshua and so I had hoped for a morning like today when we woke up to snow. It was not thick, perhaps half an inch, but that was enough for the boy to comment on his own footprints as he walked across the farmyard and for a quick exchange of snowballs. Then for sledging which, on your own land, is still not illegal in Wales although that may change.
1202 days ago
In 2000, Dr David Viner the world-leading global warming scientist at the UEA – where they had to bodge their numbers to make their predictive graphs work – said of the near future “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” His co-conspirator in the great hoax, David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, said ultimately, “British children could have only virtual experience of snow. Via the internet, they might wonder at polar scenes – or eventually “feel” virtual cold”. So guess what I woke up to today?
1208 days ago
Of course, here in Wales, you can get Covid from sledging but Joshua and I will risk it and as the first snow fell today his excitement was off the scale. Sadly the snow has not lasted. Fingers crossed for tonight. In the podcast I discuss tips of the year contests ( as opposed to our 22 tips of the year) and laugh at Justin Urquhart-Stewart. I look at two reasosn the bulls spout for bullishness and discuss. And i look at executive turnover and greed among FTSE 100 fat cats.
1238 days ago
It is not the classical painting from last year; it is a very modern offering but of two traditional scenes.
1535 days ago
My neighbours told me that it does not rain in Wales all the time and I guess they were right after all. It is now snowing. The ground and the snow are too wet to settle but it makes a change.
1908 days ago
The photo is self explanatory and is so good it might just be my 2019 Christmas card...
1909 days ago
Having started last night, as I showed here, the snow carried on till well after noon so we woke up to, perhaps, ten inches of global warming in some parts of the garden. The cat belonging to the Chav family next door went for a brief walk, as you can see below but thought better of it and is now back in our kitchen sleeping on the sofa. the little creature almost lives here now, my catnapping has worked. Joshua also enjoyed the snow.
1909 days ago
I was woken up at 6 AM by the Mrs snoring and peeked out of the window. It was still snowing. Snowballs with Joshua thought I and my heart leapt. This was the scene last night outside our front door here in Bristol with the global warming falling fast. A weekend trip to my father is, I suspect, on hold.
2015 days ago
I run these photo articles every autumn for you folks who only come to Greece in the summer and know it as a country of burnt brown grass and vegetation. Right now with autumn rains kicking in the area around the hovel is bursting into life. The patches of green are expanding rapidly and the brown is in full scale retreat. Meanwhile, everywhere, you see reds, blues, whites, purples as little flowers spring to life. It is almost alpine. All we need now is snow on the Taygetos mountains behind us. It will be here by Christmas.
2229 days ago
In 2000, Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, aka arch data fabricators and global warming nutters, noted: that within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. My son Joshua is not yet 18 months old yet, even here in Bristol, he has now experienced four periods of snow, three since Christmas. The photos below show a family playing, yet again, in a road just covered with global warming.
2268 days ago
Given that the world is actually getting colder, the Arctic sea ice is expanding, the word global warming was expunged from the dictionary by believers in the bogus religion some years ago. But I guess when folks think of "climate change" they still have visions of polar bears on melting ice caps, desertification, etc. So as UK temperatures plunge below zero (again) and snow - which the loons told us a in 2000 that kids would not know by now - covers much of the country (again), the believers in this religion have a problem.
2304 days ago
A friend who is the epitome of the remoaning metropolitan elitist emails me today to claim that "you really are becoming a fascist in your old age what with your support of Donald Trump and your climate change denial." The elitists always forget that labelling anyone with whom you disagree as a fascist demeans the true horror of what fascism is. But I suppose it is easier than actually debating facts. I shall deal with my admiration of the leader of the free world another day but let's look at some hard facts about climate change or , as it used to be known, global warming. I bring you three quotes:
2310 days ago
I start this bearcast with a tale of Joshua meeting snow for the first time - a photo later maybe. Then it is onto Lyin' Steve Sanderson and today's horror story at UK Oil & Gas (UKOG). The share price collapse is only starting. Today's disaster for Neil "Nomates" Woodford is HaloSource (HALO) which I discuss before posing a question for my old pal Jim Mellon about SalvaRx (SALV). I comment on London Capital (LCG) and promise more on that debacle tomorrow while also noting that it is countdown to results day at Inspirit (INSP). Get your beer and Christmas popcorn ready...
2320 days ago
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way, oh what fun it is with Hitler living the Aryan way. Okay I made up the second line but it makes no difference, the original version of the festive tune is racist anyway claims mad prof Kyna Hamill from Boston university.
2325 days ago
Across the snow bound Midlands it was the same story. In Warwickshire all the fee paying schools were open but all the State schools closed. Why is that?
2327 days ago
Excuse the late Bearcast but my journey back from my father's in Shipston in the snow covered Cotswolds was long and eventful as I discuss in this podcast. In a valley on the Road between Stow and Cheltenham I took part in and saw the best of selfless Britishness, folks acting with a true Christmas spirit. And also the worst, in spades. The photos give some idea of the scene as I explain what went on. Normal service resumes tomorrow.
2559 days ago
Back in early December when I arrived at the Greek Hovel for the olive harvest, the Taygettos mountains behind me were already covered with thick snow which you might think a bit odd. After all we are at the Southernmost edge of Europe and Al Gore and the global warming loons were telling us twenty years ago that this area would be almost a desert by now. Well guess what?
2626 days ago
I hope the picture below conveys the sheer beauty of the taygetos mountains which tower above the Greek Hovel. I caught this shot of the snow capped peaks as I headed up for a spot of olive tree pruning earlier this afternoon.
2627 days ago
Yesterday I served up a picture of the snow capped mountains of the Northern Peloponnese to show that it is not just in the far North of Greece that global warming falls each year. I am now in the Southern Peloponnese, in fact the Mani, where the Greek Hovel is located, is the most southerly part of mainland Greece. And guess what?
2629 days ago
I gather from my father, Darren and the Mrs that it snowed a bit in Shipston, London and Bristol today. It was snowing in Metsovo this morning and the fields on the Anelion side of the vallet were all white. But in case you think that the snow falls only in the Northern Pindus mountains, have a butchers at this photo taken from the Northern side of the Gulf of Corinth at Patras. The bridge across the gulf is pretty spectacular but look on the other side. That is the Pelopponese.
2629 days ago
I have happy memories of church in the little Vlach village of Anelion back in the 1970s. Everybody attended and was dressed smartly.Men sat in one room and women upstairs. Sadly it was locked but as it is just spitting distance from Mike's house I took a brief wander around just for old time's sake. The third photo below is the view down the valley past the big bridge to a snow capped mountain. The air is clean, the snow pristine. What more could you want?
2630 days ago
It felt decidedly nippy last night as i wandered out for a light meal of calf in tomato sauce.I was struck by how the only language I heard was Greek, not Vlach, But also how the waiter spoke English. Fourty years ago more or less no-one here in Metsovo did. The other big change was the women.
2631 days ago
Whenever I say to folks that I am off to Greece they always say "lucky you the weather will be so much nicer than in the UK". Au contraire. True, when I got to Athens airport at 4 AM (2 AM GMT) it was a balmy 9 degrees. I was so hot that i removed oone of my four layers of clothing. But as I headed North things started to change.
2658 days ago
If you are preparing for a five hour journey to work along snow covered roads or your pipes have just burst you may think that I am talking utter rubbish. But the lack of snow here in Bristol is really starting to annoy me.
Over in Greece there is lots of the white stuff on the mountains above the Greek Hovel and in fact far lower down as well. The Express tells us on a daily basis that Britain is braced for a deluge of global warming. Channel 4 News
2701 days ago
I noted yesterday that the rain clouds were so thick that from the Kalamata sea front I could not see the start of the taygetus mountain range which winds its way down the Mani peninsula. Later in the day as I drove east towards the mountains the cloud had lifted and I could see clearly that there was already a good covering of global warming directly ahead of me in the higher reaches. It got better.
2712 days ago
In this week's postcard I look at how the liberal elite of the 1% behave like fascists at a performance of the crap uber-PC musical Hamilton in New York while in Ohio Trump voters get snowed on heavily. Oh the global warming irony. But those without jobs will not be laughing at the folly of the liberal elite on this matter.
3014 days ago
My daughter's American godmother happily told me in New York just before New Year that there is no snow in the City any more as a result of global warming. That night it snowed outside our door in Brooklyn. Tomorrow the godmother is set to fly back to JFK from a three week trip to Venice. Sadly for her....
3038 days ago
It has been a warm December here in New York and the global warming nutters are having a field day. As you may be aware, New Yorkers think that the Big Apple is the centre of the Universe and that the flyover states, being populated by God fearing, gun owning, law abiding , hard working Republicans, can be ignored completely. So we can all ignore the deep snows and floods in Texas, the planet is heating up becuase New York is warmer than normal.
The local weather reprt on CBS News just told me that we have enjoyed the warmest ever December in New York. Hmmm..warmer than the Medieval warm period? warmer than, say, 1500 BC? How does CBS know? Of course what CBS means
3048 days ago
For most of my early December stay in Greece I was wearing a T-shirt all day although at night I needed a sweat shirt and coat as the temperatures plunged towards zero. But on the penultimate day it started to rain heavily both in Kalamata, where I was staying, and up in the village of Kambos in the foothills of the Taegessus Mountains. The photos below show what happened next.
Photo one is of an orange tree just off the main street in Kambos. As we worked in the fields picking olives in quite warm weather oranges were handed out by my friend George. They are just ripening for picking now.
The next two photos are from the Greek Hovel another 50 metres or so higher up into the Teagessus and three miles away from Kambos. Those who have seen the hovel in the summer will associate it with grass burned brown by hot sun. But, as you can see, it is now a lush green - this is the view looking back along the drive. The rains of October and November have left the place looking very much alive. The second photo
3345 days ago
I shall try to drive up to the snow covered peaks of the high Taygetus at the weekend. For now I just gaze up at them from the Greek Hovel. While we enjoy bouts of heavy rain and intermittent sunshine in the foothills of the Taygetus the high peaks are covered in snow.
The first photo is from the Greek Hovel itself and the far peaks are a bit covered in cloud but you can just make out the snow.
3352 days ago
In my snowcast earlier I described my journey today to the Greek hovel. At Athens airport there were small flakes of snow but as I drove up into the mountains of the Peloponnese the snow thickened. The short video below was shot at 6 AM my time (four yours) in the dark of a service station 10 miles shy of Tripoli and only 60 miles North of Kalamata where I crashed into a hotel bed at 7.30 AM my time.
3353 days ago
Shame on Paul Scott and other folks for thinking Greece was hot in winter. It is freezing. In this podcast I cover the actuality of snowfall in Greece and a few stories of my father, my Great Uncle David Cochrane and my own travels - including today's trek from Athens to the Greek Hovel - in Greece.
The map below might assist you in following what I am talking about.
3373 days ago
I was chatting to a chap in the grim North today. Snow was falling and he said that at 7 AM this morning with less than an inch of global warming on the ground the kids had been texted: School is closed. We reflected how life had changed.
Even during the winter of 1979, I cannot remember Warwick School for Boys shutting down. When we are at the junior school snow meant that Headmaster Jack Marshall would allow us to wear long trousers rather than our normal shorts. It could have been minus 5 but if there was no snow, it was shorts as normal for the younger boys.
If the rugby pitches were covered in snow we played anyway. Snow is soft. When snow turned to ice it was a freezing cross country run instead. Boy did I hate that.
The point is that the school never closed. And snow meant snowballs which is not quite the harmless game it sounds. The sixth form would amass on the centre of a rugby pitch and the rest of the school would advance from a car park to throw snow balls. And then in snatch parties, as in the army, the brutes would rush out and try to catch an advancing “nipper” who would promptly find himself having snow shoved up
3385 days ago
Back in Bristol and the cats are in disgrace for weeing on the doormat and the temperature is minus something. The Mrs is not sympathetic and I am back in the garage at my desk wearing a thick coat, hugging my heater and still freezing. I suggested to the Mrs that the cats be forced to join me as punishment but she said that would be cruel. And so I suffer alone.
At the tobacconists the Daily Express warns of snowfall across the country and of freezing conditions. I point this out to the Mrs on my return but she thinks this is just right wing propaganda and I must continue to work in the garage.
The Daily Telegraph warns its readers
3734 days ago
Saturday night in Shipston with my father and step mother entails a trip to Moreton-in-Marsh train station. It is a non-descript station in a pretty little Cotswold town. I have happy memories of arriving there around this time last year with snow so deep that there was no way to get to Shipston. Thankfully there was room at the (Bell) Inn and a landlord prepared to wait up for my delayed train.
This time there were no such snags but, since he could not be late for Church, my father dropped me off thirty minutes before the departure of the 10.11 to Oxford. All rooms at the station were locked so it was a chilly half an hour. The only thing of note at this station is that the signs for taxis, buses, toilets etc are in both English and a language which is, I think, Chinese but may be Japanese.
This seems harmless enough but I wonder of any local person might explain to me why there is such a pressing need for signs in Chinese or Japanese or whatever it is? Is there a big hidden demographic I have missed or something about the local economy of which I am utterly ignorant? I see the signs as a harmless eccentric and am just curious to know the reasoning behind them.
4091 days ago
Every time I come here it seems to snow. My deluded lefty step mother, who ticked me off earlier today for referring to global warming as opposed to climate change, is now safely in bed. The cat & I have thus switched the heating on full blast as an inch of global warming, oops, sorry 2.54 centimetres of climate change has now fallen. Needless to say I am travelling back to London tomorrow and so expect wholesale travel chaos. I feel cursed.
4114 days ago
My normal Friday sees me taking a very late train out to the West of England from Paddington. The 11.30 from Paddington sounds like an Agatha Christie but the novel that springs to mind as I contemplate today’s trip is Murder on the Orient express, when the train gets trapped in the snow half way across Yugoslavia.
Of course we will not see 10 foot snowdrifts in Southern England but it only needs a few inches of global warming to fall and Network Rail throws in the towel. I wonder what is the worst case scenario? To be told at Paddington that there are no trains and to be stranded in the capital? That would be bad enough. The trains are quite warm so getting stuck in a snowdrift would be acceptable. I think my real nightmare is the train stopping at either Didcot or Swindon at 1 AM. Neither station is warm and both are grim.
At least Swindon produced the delightful Melinda Messenger (who is now 41, can you believe it?) and (only until May I pray) is home to Paulo di Canio. None the less a night in its station waiting room is not a prospect I’d relish.
Overall today’s travel fills me with dread.
4159 days ago
Yup I know it is December so not really a shock (unless you are a total global warming nutter). And I know that it is a bit childish but there is always an excitement in seeing the first snow of the winter. It only becomes a pain later. And so at 3.30 AM as I work on a new book idea I look out of the window and there are huge snowflakes falling on Shipston-on-Stour.
I am again at my father’s house sorting out a few things. It is only about half an hour from the village in which I grew up. Snow lay thick on the ground and roads when I had my first driving lessons 27 years and eleven month ago with Mr Ceney. That was fun. A few years earlier snow meant a day off school if you lived in our village. Harbury was at the top of a steep hill and so it was sometimes too dangerous to try to drive down that hill towards Warwick. Yippeee off to Ufton Hill to sleigh down on a plastic bag.
And now the snowflakes are falling harder. The child in me wants them to settle. Step sister Flea’s very young daughters are staying the night and I know they’d love to throw a few snowballs at Grandpa tomorrow morning. Heck, so would I. The adult in me knows that I have to drive the Old Man into Warwick tomorrow and I am not sure I really fancy doing it on snow covered roads. I am torn.
