Wednesday 28 April

Another day of rain with rather more wind than yesterday. Whilst the south of the UK basks in temperatures of nearly 22C, we're having to make do with 11C this afternoon. By the end of the week, all of the UK will have to do with 11C. It's only April (nearly May), and anything could still happen.

The Southern Hemisphere hurricane season is simpering to a conclusion on Friday, with nothing happening at present. The Northern Hemisphere season is slowly cranking up, with one tropical disturbance bringing rain to the south of the Philippines. The North Atlantic is still in winter mode, as is the Eastern Pacific. The seasons there will commence on June 1st and May 15th respectively.

My local rag, the Press and Journal, reported on events in the "Showboat" area of Lewis. Having a spell checker on your wordprocessor can be useful, but be careful not to allow it to automatically correct everything it perceives to be wrong. Shawbost is a lively community, and some would argue that the moniker "showboat" would not go amiss there.


Next week, it will be three years since Madeleine McCann disappeared whilst on holiday with her parents in Portugal. No reliable sightings of the girl, who would be nearly 7 now if she is still alive, have been made. Parents Gerry and Kate continue to search, and now accuse the British police of giving up on her. I can fully understand that the McCanns will never quit searching for Madeleine, but it is cringeworthy to note the flurry of fake sightings in the British gutter press. Employing the media is like wielding a two-edged sword: it can help you, but you will be chewed up and abused by the hacks to their own ends.

Finally, the Scottish National Party has failed in their bid to be allowed a representative on the final election debate on BBC TV on Thursday. They had argued that as the party in government in Scotland, they should be permitted someone alongside Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Gordon Brown. This argument has been rejected by the court, which found that the BBC had not breached its impartiality in refusing the SNP request to participate. The comments from other political parties, at the bottom of this BBC article, speak for themselves.