After the general public totally panicked again after the recent snowfall and most business closed down I took the opportunity to take a few photographs around Hill Snook Park in Rhiwbina and up at Rhiwbina Hill. Most people were out enjoying themselves in the snow its just unfortunate that a few kids have to misbehave thus tarnishing everyone else with the same brush.

Anyway enjoy the photos!

Once again a bit of snow and low temperatures have meant that much of Britain has ground to a halt but whose fault is it? The councils for failing to grit our roads adequately or individual drivers behaving as if they have never driven before? Well it is probably more of the latter recently in my humble opinion! Driving on snow isn’t to bad you can get enough grip its the ice that causes the problems unless of course like most people do is use their accelerator peddle far to much in these snowy conditions. I was following a car yesterday in quite a bit of snow I was happily going along keeping a steady pace whilst the car in front was sliding all over the place, why? Because every time his wheels started to spin he jammed his foot on the accelerator making him slide more.

You see this all the time on the news, drivers who are ‘stuck’ in the snow with their foots jammed on the accelerator and their front wheels spinning desperately trying to get some grip. No! this is not the way to do it! On fresh snow you want to put as little power as possible down to the front wheels and most times you will find that the car will start to creep forward. In fact with most cars you can slowly bring the clutch out in first or second and the car will start to creep forward, well you can in diesels anyway! If your car is back wheel drive don’t even bother venturing out as there is little weight over the driving wheels to help grip the snow.

Many people also seem to use their brakes far to aggressively in the snow as well ended up in a slide. If you are unfortunate enough to start sliding bring your foot off the break so the wheels start moving again and apply them again with less pressure. If possible use your engine to slow you down rather than over breaking change down through the gears and you will find the engine does quite a good job of slowing you down (you should drive in this way in normal conditions as well and not just rely on your brakes!).

Another tip is to leave snow on the bonnet of your car rather than clear it off. The snow adds extra weight to the driving wheels if its a front wheel drive which all helps in the snow.

p.s. If you hit sheet ice then you can panic!

The race for bread and milk

Why oh why do people go overboard every time a bit of snow is forecast? The shops were full of people buying every last scrap of bread off the shelves and every last drop of milk from the fridges. What is wrong with these people? Idiots spring to mind. OK a bit of snow has fallen but we are hardly going to go hungry, well unless the Council’s don’t grit the roads and people clog up the roads with their inability to drive properly…

To sum up the citizens of the U.K’s reaction to Snow I have produced a nice little pie chart below!

Pie Chart. Reasons why people in the U.K. don't go to work in the snow

I read with interest a article on The Register Website about the loss of Antarctic Ice.

I am quite surprised by NASA’s (alleged) errors but what has caught my attention is the following paragraph -

We hear constantly about ‘global warming’ in fact the BBC are disappointingly one of the worst culprits in their biased opinions on the causes on ‘global warming’ (us!). I am glad to read the above mind which clearly states this process has been “underway for 20,000 years, since the thickness peaked during the last “glacial maximum” I have always been of the opinion that we simply cannot prove that we are totally responsible for global warming given the above fact. The climate goes through many fluctuations over thousands of years  (which of course is nothing in geological time!) so how do we know for sure that the present warming is not a natural cycle?

Tenby Harbour

I went down to Pembrokeshire this weekend (Friday 9th October 2009 – Sunday 11th October 2009) staying in Tenby Friday and Saturday night. We were very lucky with the weather with unseasonally hot weather on Saturday which made quite hard work walking from Tenby to Saundersfoot on the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path! I walked most of St Brides Bay earlier in the summer and I must say I found this walk difficult in comparison to some on my earlier trip.

Still the glorious day gave me the chance to mess around with a new SLR came with some success and I must admit some disasters when it came to setting the exposure, still I’m sure I will figure it out in time.

On Sunday after leaving Tenby we headed West to Dear Park near Skomer Island to look for some Seal pups, maybe a bit late in the season but we did find a few looking over the cliff

Seals At Dear Park

top and I must say the zoom on the new SLR worked a treat although as you can see from the image below it also picked up a rogue plastic bottle on the beach next to the seals!

We then headed to Marloes Sands which never fails to impress in all weathers and lighting conditions we knew the tide would be out which gave us ample chance to walk along the beach. Unfortunately the quickly diminishing light at this time of year forced us to leave and home we came to face another Monday in work. Still perhaps one day with my various web ventures I will be able to buy that nice Harbour side flat in Tenby and be my own boss, I may win the lottery one day so until then I will just have to dream!

Enjoy some of my photos!

Monkstone Point

According to a recent report from NASA the higher peaks of the Greenland ice sheet spent longer melting this summer than any summer since 1988. However the strangest anomaly was that the melting was more pronounced at higher altitude regions demonstrating the complex environmental systems of our planet.

British-born physicist Freeman Dyson commented on the fact that he believes that our current climate models are rubbish perhaps the complexity of the planets environmental systems are a cause of this.

Two more animals at Skanda Vale Multi Faith Centre have been tested positive for Bovine TB and must now be put down. Perhaps this shows how dangerous this disease is and the monks were wrong to oppose the initial slaughter of Shambo.

Perhaps if they hadn’t protested in the first place and the slaughter of Shambo hadn’t been so protracted then perhaps the disease may not have spread and the other two animals lives would have been spared.

A Hindu educationalist pointed out in a BBC Article that the monks interpretation of Hinduism was “naive” and “simplistic”

An interesting article appeared on the Register web site today talking about how British-born physicist Freeman Dyson believes “The fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated”.

I always wonder about the media’s hype surrounding global warming and such phrases as ‘our recent floods are due to global warming’ before going on to say ‘July 2007 was the wettest summer in over 240 years’. So 240 years ago there was a wetter summer, was that due to global warming as well?!

Our climate is ever changing and could you imagine the hype if we ever had a cold snap such as the Little Ice Age of the 16th Century, well of course that must have been down to global warming as well.

I shall always remember researching global warming whilst in University and finding that many academic journals actually questioned how the natural world would adapt to increasing levels of carbon and hence global warming. There are plenty of feedback mechanisms in place (how much CO2 can the worlds oceans absorb etc).

I’m glad that Dyson has at last had the gall to question all the climatic models put forward at every opportunity.

The long running saga of Shambo the “sacred” bullock has ended with the animal being taken away from Skanda Vale Multi Faith Centre by Welsh Assembly officials to be slaughtered. Shambo had been tested positive for Bovine TB and under strict rules had to be slaughtered for public health reasons.

There is an interesting article on the BBC website from a Hindu educationalist who has pointed out that the monks have interpreted the religion wrongly.

I feel sorry for the Welsh Assembly Government on this issue, if they hadn’t slaughtered the animal and TB had spread to local cattle or even Humans (god forbid as it is an horrendous disease) they would have been mass public out cry and hysteria. On the other hand they have been criticised from many quarters for carrying out the slaughter.

I’m sure this row will keep rumbling on!