Unpleasantly wet and windy today, although the temperature has shot up from -2C at 11pm last night to +10C right now. The tropical cyclone that has grumbled along the Queensland coast for a few days has been torn apart by conflicting winds at various levels in the atmosphere. Hamish is now little more than a spell of bad weather, bringing gales to the coast north of Brisbane. Another cyclone is bringing gale-force winds to the islands around Rarotonga, 50 degrees in longitude to the east in the Pacific. Joni won't get much above force 9 on the Beaufort scale.
Had a laugh when watching Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon. The MP for Chesterfield in Derbyshire had a go at the neighbouring constituency for Bolsover - and the MP for that town is veteran Dennis Skinner who promptly had a go back at Chesterfield. Skinner, a left-wing Labour MP for a former mining constituency, is one of the characters in the House of Commons, and everybody had a good laugh out of the encounter.
Absolutely not amusing was an incident in southern Germany, when a 17-year old gunman entered his former school at Winnenden near Stuttgart and opened fire. After killing 9 pupils and 3 teachers, he fled to the town of Wendlingen, 25 miles away, and was killed in a shoot-out in the supermarket. This also left 2 bystanders dead.
