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Climate change, climate bullshit

2024-02-12T21:26:00.000+00:00

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Trillions Spent on ‘Climate Change’ Based on Faulty Temperature Data, Climate Experts Say

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(Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock)

By Katie Spence

January 29, 2024

Updated:

February 01, 2024

To preserve a “livable planet,” the Earth can’t warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the United Nations warns.

Failure to maintain that level could lead to several catastrophes, including increased droughts and weather-related disasters, more heat-related illnesses and deaths, and less food and more poverty, according to NASA.

To avert the looming tribulations and limit global temperature increases, 194 member states and the European Union in 2016 signed the U.N. Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty with a goal to “substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.”

After the agreement, global spending on climate-related projects increased exponentially.

In 2021 and 2022, the world’s taxpayers spent, on average, $1.3 trillion on such projects each year, according to the nonprofit advisory group Climate Policy Initiative.

Climate Scientists Say We Should Embrace Higher CO2 Levels

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That’s more than double the spending rate in 2019 and 2020, which came in at $653 billion per year, and it’s significantly up from the $364 billion per year in 2011 and 2012, the report found.

Despite the money pouring in, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that 2023 was the hottest year on record.

NOAA’s climate monitoring stations found that the Earth’s average land and ocean surface temperature in 2023 was 1.35 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.

“Not only was 2023 the warmest year in NOAA’s 174-year climate record—it was the warmest by far,” said Sarah Kapnick, NOAA’s chief scientist.

“A warming planet means we need to be prepared for the impacts of climate change that are happening here and now, like extreme weather events that become both more frequent and severe.”

But a growing chorus of climate scientists are saying the temperature readings are faulty and that the trillions of dollars pouring in are based on a problem that doesn’t exist.

More than 90 percent of NOAA’s temperature monitoring stations have a heat bias, according to Anthony Watts, a meteorologist, senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute, author of climate website Watts Up With That, and director of a study that examined NOAA’s climate stations.

“And with that large of a number, over 90 percent, the methods that NOAA employs to try to reduce this don’t work because the bias is so overwhelming,” Mr. Watts told The Epoch Times.

“The few stations that are left that are not biased because they are, for example, outside of town in a field and are an agricultural research station that’s been around for 100 years ... their data gets completely swamped by the much larger set of biased data. There’s no way you can adjust that out.”

A meteorologist monitors weather in NOAA's center for weather and climate prediction in Riverdale, Md., on July 2, 2013. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Meteorologist Roy Spencer agreed.

“The surface thermometer data still have spurious warming effects due to the urban heat island, which increases over time,” Mr. Spencer said.

He is the principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite, and the recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work with satellite-based temperature monitoring.

Mr. Spencer also said computerized climate models used to drive changes in energy policy are even more faulty.

Lt. Col. John Shewchuk, a certified consulting meteorologist, said the problems with temperature readings go beyond heat bias. The retired lieutenant colonel was an advanced weather officer in the Air Force.

“After seeing many reports about NOAA’s adjustments to the USHCN [U.S. Historical Climatology Network] temperature data, I decided to download and analyze the data myself,” Lt. Col. Shewchuk told The Epoch Times.

“I was able to confirm what others have found. It is obvious that, overall, the past temperatures were cooled while the present temperatures were warmed.”

He contends that NOAA and NASA have adjusted historical temperature data in such a way as to make the past appear colder and, by so doing, make the current warming trend more pronounced.

Faulty Temperature Readings

The urban heat island effect causes higher temperatures in areas where there are more buildings, roads, and other forms of infrastructure that absorb and then radiate the sun’s heat, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The agency estimates that “daytime temperatures in urban areas are 1–7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than temperatures in outlying areas, and nighttime temperatures are about 2–5 degrees Fahrenheit higher.”

Consequently, NOAA requires all its climate observation stations to be located at least 100 feet away from elements such as concrete, asphalt, and buildings.

Students of the University of Illinois carry a weather station during a NOAA education day on tornadoes, in Memphis on Feb. 8, 2023. (Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images)

However, in March 2009, Mr. Watts released a report that shows that 89 percent of NOAA’s stations had heat bias issues due to being located within 100 feet of those elements, and many were located by airport runways.

“We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat,” Mr. Watts said.

“We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.”

The report concluded that the U.S. temperature record was unreliable, and because it was considered “the best in the world,” global temperature databases were also “compromised and unreliable.”

Following the report, the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office confirmed Mr. Watt’s findings and stated that NOAA was taking steps to address the issues.

“NOAA acknowledges that there are problems with the USHCN data due to biases introduced by such means as undocumented site relocation, poor siting, or instrument changes,” the OIG report reads.

“All of the experts thought that an improved, modernized climate reporting system is necessary to eliminate the need for data adjustments.”

Despite the assurances, Mr. Watts had doubts about NOAA addressing the issues and in April 2022 and May 2022, he and his team revisited many of the same temperature stations they had observed in 2009.

He published his findings in a new study on July 27, 2022. It found that even more, approximately 96 percent, of NOAA’s temperature stations still failed to meet its own standards.

“There are two main biases in the surface temperature network for the United States, and most likely the world, that I have identified,” Mr. Watts said.

“The biggest bias is the urban heat island effect. What happens is that because heat is retained by the surfaces and released into the air at night, the night’s low temperature is not as low as it could be if the thermometer were outside of town and in a field.”

Global average surface temperatures have been variable, but show an increasing trend in recent decades. (Illustration by The Epoch Times)

Over the years, he said, more and more infrastructure has been built up around the thermometer locations, and at night, the asphalt and concrete release the absorbed heat and push up the temperature.

“You can look at any set of climate data, no matter who produces it, and you can see this effect. The low temperatures are trending upward much faster, and the high temperatures are virtually unchanged. But it’s the average temperature that’s being used to track climate change,” Mr. Watts said.

He said that even though both NOAA and NASA claim that they can adjust their data to account for the urban heat island effect, the bias is impossible to overcome because the problem impacts 96 percent of surface stations.

He said the few thermometers located at climate stations not experiencing a heat bias show half the rate of warming currently being reported.

Transient Temperature

The second primary bias that Mr. Watts identified is the transient temperature readings, which are short-term temperature changes that can give a false reading.

NOAA started switching out their mercury thermometers in the mid-to-late 1980s, according to Mr. Watts.

A billboard displays a temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit during a record heat wave in Phoenix on July 18, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

The majority of its network now consists of electronic thermometers that can measure temperature within seconds.

“But they’re only recording the high and the low temperature of the day, and these can be biased by simple effects of wind,” he said.

“For example, you can have one of these temperature sensors placed near a parking lot, which happens to be to the east of the thermometer. And the wind has been predominantly from the south all through the day. But then, all of a sudden, you get a wind shift, and the wind shift could be caused by a number of different things. It could be caused by a change in the weather patterns. It could be caused by something blocking the wind from the south, like a semi-truck pulling up nearby.

“So you get wind shifting out of the east suddenly, coming across the parking lot, and picking up that radiant heat. And the thermometer will respond to that in the space of a second or two. And it will report a high temperature from that wind gust that does not necessarily represent the weather that day. It’s an anomaly. And the same thing can happen at night.”

Mr. Watts said transient temperature is such a well-known problem that the Met Office in the UK and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have abandoned their high-tech network and are retooling to get more accurate readings.

“These are the problems that NOAA has not really fully addressed,” he said. “The folks who do the climate data never leave the office, and they don’t administer these stations. They [the stations] are left to the National Weather Service field offices—and the National Weather Service field offices are understaffed.

“Some stations, like out here in the West, are hundreds of miles away or more from the National Weather Service office, so they can’t get out there and do maintenance regularly. And when the National Weather Service went to modernization in the early 1990s, they closed many Weather Service offices around the country.

“And so, the maintenance on these thermometers—and a lot of these monitors are run by the public, a lot are volunteers—has fallen off. I’ve had volunteers, when I go visit, ask me if I can get the Weather Service to come out and fix something. But they can’t, because the problem is, they don’t have the budget.

“The bottom line is that the Cooperative Observer Network, the COOP network—it’s literally a ragtag bunch of volunteers combined with some public agencies, such as police stations, fire stations, forest service, and so on.

“This is not a rigorously scientifically controlled network at the operational level.”

Heat waves cause distortion on the horizon as a pedestrian walks along South Las Vegas Blvd in Las Vegas on July 30, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

NOAA itself stated on its website that its temperature readings aren’t precise and that the agency adds a margin of error to its temperatures.

Neither NOAA nor NASA responded by press time to The Epoch Times’ request for comment regarding transient temperature anomalies or Mr. Watts’s claim that adjusting for a heat bias is impossible.

Adjusting Temperature Readings

NOAA has also been adjusting historical temperature data.

“Normally, when correcting data errors, you would expect a more random result in the data adjustments—both up and down—but the results instead show a systematic process of cooling the past and warming the present,” Lt. Col. Shewchuk said.

An example is Iceland’s Reykjavik station.

The February 1936 record for the Reykjavik station showed a mean temperature of minus 0.2 degrees Celsius for the month and an annual mean temperature of 5.78 degrees Celsius, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP). The original GISTEMP monthly data was known as v2, or version 2.

EPA data shows an increasing ratio of daily record high-to-low temperatures in order to indicate rising global temperatures (Illustration by The Epoch Times).

In 2019, NOAA released an updated version of its software, GISTEMP v4.

It shows Reykjavik station’s mean temperature for February 1936 as minus 1.02 degrees Celsius, and the annual mean temperature as 5.01 degrees Celsius. That’s a downward adjustment of 0.82 degrees Celsius for the month and 0.77 degrees Celsius for the year after the software update.

When comparing the GISTEMP v2 monthly data against the v4 monthly data, an overall cooling of the past is observed.

People cool off at a swimming pool during a heatwave near the town of Shtime, Kosovo, on July 22, 2023. (Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty Images)

“Incredibly, the range of data adjustments exceeds 2 degrees Fahrenheit, which is significant with respect to current temperature trends,” Lt. Col. Shewchuk said.

“NOAA also employs a very unusual follow-on data adjustment process, where they periodically go back and re-adjust the previously adjusted data. This makes it difficult to find ground truth, which seems more like shifting sands.”

In response to The Epoch Times’ request for comment about the adjustments to historical data, NOAA’s public affairs officer, John Bateman, said he reached out to one of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) climate experts, who responded: “NCEI applies corrections to account for historical changes in station location, temperature instrumentation, observing practice, and, to a lesser extent, siting conditions. Our approaches are documented in the peer-reviewed literature. At the national scale, the corrected data are in good agreement with the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN), which has pristine siting conditions.”

NASA didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment about adjustments to historical data.

Satellite Readings

To get a more accurate reading of the Earth’s fluctuating surface temperatures, Mr. Spencer and climatologist John Christy developed a global temperature data set from microwave data observed from satellites.

Mr. Christy is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and director of the Earth System Science Center, who, along with Mr. Spencer, received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work with satellite-based temperature monitoring.

They started their project in 1989 and analyzed data going back to 1979.

According to satellite data, since 1979, the Earth’s temperature has been increasing at a steady rate of 0.14 degrees Celsius every 10 years.

And while 2023 was the hottest year on record due to linear warming trends, they say it’s not a cause for public panic.

“Yes, it appears 2023 was the warmest in the last 100 years or so. But numbers matter. The magnitude isn’t large enough for anyone to feel,” Mr. Spencer said.

“Besides, a single year is weather, not climate. What matters is the long-term trend, say many decades.”

He said the 2023 data, added to the 45 years of data since 1979, doesn’t alter the overall trend of 0.14 degrees Celsius increase every 10 years

“I believe both satellites and thermometers show a warming trend, especially since the 1970s,” Mr. Spencer said.

“But the strength of that trend is considerably less than what climate models predict, and it is those models which are used to argue for changes in energy policy and CO2 emissions reduction.”

An employee gestures toward a global map showing information coming in from NASA satellites at an exhibit at NASA headquarters in Washington on June 21, 2023. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

Lt. Col. Shewchuk agreed that satellite-based temperature data is more precise, and it shows a much smaller warming trend than NOAA’s surface-based warming trend.

“The satellite data are a better measure of global temperature change because [they] do not suffer from conventional surface temperature station location problems or the numerous forms of NOAA data editing activities,” he said.

Satellite readings are also “routinely calibrated to radiosonde (weather balloon) data, which are the gold standard for atmospheric data.”

Mr. Spencer published a report on Jan. 24 that addresses inaccuracies in climate modeling.

“Warming of the global climate system over the past half-century has averaged 43 percent less than that produced by computerized climate models used to promote changes in energy policy,” the report reads.

“Contrary to media reports and environmental organizations’ press releases, global warming offers no justification for carbon-based regulation.”

Mr. Spencer said the public has been led to believe that modeling is “fairly accurate,” but a number of additional variables have been added to the modeling that result in higher temperature estimates.

Steam billows from a coal-fired power plant in Craig, Colo., on Nov. 18, 2021. (Rick Bowmer/File/AP Photo)

“Current claims of a climate crisis are invariably the result of reliance on the models producing the most warming, not on actual observations of the climate system which reveal unremarkable changes over the past century or more,” he wrote.

NASA Props Up Ground Readings

NASA claims on its website that ground thermometers are more accurate than satellite measurements.

“While satellites provide valuable information about Earth’s temperature, ground thermometers are considered more reliable because they directly measure the temperature where people reside,” NASA stated.

“Satellite data require complex processing and modeling to convert brightness measurements into temperature readings, making ground thermometers a more direct and accurate source of temperature information for us.”

Mr. Spencer quickly pointed out the flaws in NASA’s claim.

“Surface thermometers only cover a tiny fraction of the Earth, whereas the satellites provide nearly complete global coverage,” he said.

“NASA’s complaint that the 16 separate satellites must be pieced together ‘like a jigsaw puzzle’ is ironic since the surface temperature record is pieced together from hundreds (if not thousands) of stations, with almost none of them, anywhere, providing a continuous, uninterrupted record unaffected by increasing urban heat island effects.

“Finally, the complaint is that satellites only measure the deep atmosphere, not the surface where people live. ... Well, if that is so, why are deep ocean temperatures touted as being so valuable for climate research? All of these measurements are important in their own right, and each system has its strengths and weaknesses. Our satellite dataset is widely used by climate researchers around the world.”

A videographer films the NISAR satellite, a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization, inside NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Feb. 3, 2023. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

As to NASA’s critique that satellites don’t directly measure temperature but instead the brightness of Earth’s atmosphere, making them inaccurate, Mr. Spencer said: “Strictly speaking, that is true. But surface thermometers are electronic, so (technically) they measure electrical resistance.

“The satellites are calibrated with the highest quality, laboratory-standard platinum resistance thermometers. If NASA is going to fault remotely-sensed satellite data, they might as well shut down their myriad Earth satellite programs, which have the same (supposed) ‘defect.’”

Lt. Col. Shewchuk called NASA’s claim that satellite data is inferior to surface temperature readings “nonsense.”

“UAH satellite data is the only data source that is truly global in nature. It effectively measures the temperature of earth’s entire atmosphere, and especially the lower troposphere—where our weather is actually created,” he said.

“The only limitation is that the satellite data only begins in 1979.”

Mr. Watts said that when he looked at data from ground surface stations in grassy fields (absent an urban heat island effect), the temperature readings closely matched Mr. Spencer’s satellite data.

When asked why NOAA isn’t only using thermometers where there’s no possibility for an urban heat island effect, Mr. Spencer said: “I think their goal is not to get the most accurate long-term temperature record but to use as much thermometer data as they can get their hands on. This is good to build a congressionally-funded program and keep people employed.”

The current amount of money, $1.3 trillion annually, being spent on climate initiatives is nowhere near enough, according to the Climate Policy Initiative.

“In the average scenario, the annual climate finance needed through 2030 increases steadily from $8.1 to $9 trillion. Then, estimated needs jump to over $10 trillion each year from 2031 to 2050,” the group stated.

“This means that climate finance must increase by at least five-fold annually, as quickly as possible, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

The organization lists its funders on its website, including the Rockefeller Foundation, WWF, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Its partners include BlackRock, two U.N. climate groups, several large global banks, and government groups such as the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy.

How long?

2023-10-25T00:58:00.006+01:00

There was me back in January promising to be a more regular writer in the future and look at this it's October already.

Goodbye 2022

2023-01-14T02:27:00.000+00:00

So the old year seemed to pass by at a phenomenal speed. It had barely just begun and there it was gone. Already we are 2 weeks into the new year. I wonder what we will see next!

Summer!

2022-11-05T00:40:00.001+00:00

Suze and I had a great summer on the Thames. Though she only came for five weeks I spent nearly 3 months enjoying the sun. There are places where you can spend days on the bank and never put on clothes. It's fab just lying in the sun and getting an all-over tan.

We returned to the Oxford Canal at the end of summer and headed for Banbury for the Banbury Canal Day which was a great success for its first day after the Covid debacle.

Our plans for the winter were to moor in Thrupp, we had a winter mooring. We watered up late October in preparation for our journey to Thrupp and were expecting to head that way at the weekend hoping to arrive before the stoppages began. However, whilst we were watering I decided to empty my rubbish. On my return, Matt of Tooley's asked if I wanted a mooring.

Now we love Tooley's and we love Matt. How could we say no!

So for the foreseeable future, we will be mooring at Tooley's.

If you happen to pass by please stop. We will be only too glad to host your good selves to a few beers and sometimes a meal. We will be moving onto the wharf as soon as the current incumbent has been sold and moved, maybe end of November!

HM Queen Elizabeth II RIP!

2022-09-09T13:05:00.002+01:00

I was born in 1950. There was a King on the throne, George Vl, the father of a monarch who served us well for 70 years, though my personal memory does not include the King.

When in 1947, as a young woman of 21, the then Princess Elizabeth said, "I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong", she meant it and she carried out her promise with great dignity, until the day she died.

We can all say well she had a privileged life, but the reality of it is she was like a bird in a gilded cage. It was impossible to escape even if she wanted to.

I am not a great royalist but even I can see greatness, and now all our lives have changed, we will all be the better for her greatness and dignity, which she displayed at all times.

Mooring on the Thames

2022-09-06T13:57:00.003+01:00

My time on the Thames is coming to an end. I have so far been out for 2 months, one of those with Suze. It has been a fab summer full of lots of boating, lots of eating, and lots of wine. We met some old friends, made some new friends and learned a new skill, 'Mooring in crap places'.

There are so many boats on the river these days mooring is becoming a problem. Mooring places are few and far between. The more Liveaboards (LABs) come to the river the more difficult it gets to tie up. Usually, the rule is 24 hours but more and more LABs tie up with their shopping rib on the outside and they stay there for weeks on end! Moorings, in general, are disappearing, becoming overgrown or blocked by fallen trees. Many more landowners are erecting 'NO MOORING' signs and some fee-paid moorings are asking stupid sums for two 1-inch holes and access for the night. Often the water is shallow and not suitable for a flat-bottomed boat the banks are precarious, and the plank has always to be at the ready. Rubbish abounds and copious quantities of Doggie doo-do adorn the area and pathways.

Now I don't mind clearing up some rubbish other people have wantonly discarded, but if I am paying good money I shouldn't have to cut back the overgrowth and scale a 6-foot high bank and trip over debris that the infamous magnet fishers have discarded. I think the HSE might like to think about this one!

The bank from Pooh stick bridge to the bridge where Thame joins the Thames is now a charged for mooring. Most of that stretch has about a 7/8-foot bank and is topped with nettles or has trees growing out of the river

Many official moorings have all but disappeared. The signs that denote their presence barely peering out of the brambles. The 'Public' EA mooring 200 yards downstream of Staines Bridge on the right hasn't been cut back for what looks like the three years since the last time I was there and that was done by well-meaning boaters. At Molesey, members of the local boat club have removed the wooden bollards that were set into the ground adjacent to their club because a narrow boat had the temerity to have an engine breakdown and moored there. Yes I know the club took them out I watched them do it. I even had a photo of them doing it. Well that's no big deal you may say, but if you have an engine problem near there the next stop is on the weir.

So what we have is increasing numbers of boats and decreasing numbers of moorings. Landowners can't keep turning up taking the money and walking away! Well, they don't turn up now you have to pay online so they have to do fuck all!!! They can't even be arsed to ensure any signs are clearly visible.

Add to this increasing growth of the bank side trees obscuring the bank (and the river) and the poor old boater is being royally screwed every which way.

I think there should be a 'mooring standard' which must be adhered to if charges are made. And if the Landowner doesn't want to accept the 'standard', then he can't charge, but must accept wild mooring on his banks. I like the EA's way of charging for mooring, 1st-night free, 2nd-night £5, 3rd-night £5.50 4th night £50. So no one stays more than three nights and the charge is £10.50. Charging £10/£12 a night is just preposterous adding over £300 to a month's stay on the river! Especially when some are paying up to £2.20 a litre for fuel as well. A month's stay could cost over £300. Add to that the gold licence is an extra £300+. So we are looking at £1,000.

I know there are more important things to be worrying about right now, but this is something that concerns us all that like the rivers.

Psychobabble

2022-09-02T23:06:00.006+01:00

I often get some gook telling me I need to watch 'this video or that video'. The videos tell me how wonderful this man is or that product is, and how insightful he is, and they spend a lot of time doing that, but never seem to get to the point. Stop with the pointless intro and get to the point. What is this ad trying to fucking say? I listened for a few minutes and said 'F**k off'

If you have something to say, then say it! Do not faff about, because the instant you do your discussion is over. Talk to real people in the language they understand. We didn't all go to college or Uni. Life lesson No1 KISS Keep It Simple Stupid.

Fishing

2022-09-02T22:35:00.004+01:00

Well, here I am at Clifton weir. A chap arrived and asked me to move along, it was his fishing rights. I said 'No'. As I understand it, his fishing rights do not supercede my need to moor. In the reach between Culham and Clifton, this is the only mooring! This is my second day. I have spent a lot of time and effort over the last couple of months making this a nice mooring. I'm sorry but he could have fished in front of me or behind me. I was not obstructing him. He was very polite, but I am sorry if you come to me at 8 o'clock at night when I am cooking my dinner and have a DVD in the machine, and am almost naked getting ready for a shower (just a tee shirt), do not expect a good response. Do not threaten me that I will never moor there again.

But was I just being an arsehole? He didn't miss out on the fishing he just fished somewhere else. I did move up, about 20 feet, the next day because on reflection it wouldn't have hurt. I burned my dinner anyway.

Slightly embarrased.

2022-08-16T19:20:00.002+01:00

Leaving Kingston I set off to Hampton Court where I found a mooring, several actually. On the way, I had that awful football rattle sound coming from the engine. Having changed a Drive Plate last year for that very reason I straight away recognised the sound. Throttling back until the noise stopped we were able to make way at about 1 mph. The next day we limped up to Sunbury. Where we stayed over the 24 hours allowed. During this time I contacted the supplier, Tooley's and their supplier Midland Chandlers who contacted the manufacturer R & D to discuss what happens next. Well, the weekend came and there is no one working over the weekend so I had to wait until Monday.

The Inverter tripped out during the night just coming to the end of a film. All the time on the Thames I had had no issues at all with battery charging, but the next few days the inverter tripped off halfway through the night. This was a concern but not as much as the Plate. Saturday we limped up to Walton

On Monday I decided to get the drive plate out ready for the arrival of the new item. Before starting, I did some belt-tightening and found the main alternator belt to be very slack. This I tightened and on starting the engine I could see everything in the electric department was well again. The funny thing was the rattling noise of the Plate was gone. I ran the engine a lot on Monday at differing speeds, a. to charge the batteries and b. to see if the noise came back, it didn't! Today we took a trip down towards Sunbury Lock and then up to Shepperton at normal Cruising speed, 4 mph, and never heard the problem again.

My question, were I to be asking questions at this point is, Why would a toothed rubber drive belt slipping on the pullies sound like a football rattle? Or as Susan says, like stirring a tin of 3" nails at high speed.

I am curious now about the plate I changed last year. Was it really necessary?

On the Thames

2022-08-09T08:46:00.007+01:00

Been a busy few months and I have lost track of blogging. Currently, we are in Kingston (not Jamaica) for a few days. District Enforcement are now in charge of the moorings and fees. As I have come to expect their website via PAY TO MOOR is not particularly user-friendly and I attempted several times to 'Register Arrival' to no avail. Needless to say the following morning one of their 'thugs' came to visit asking why I hadn't registered. Anyhoo the system worked that morning. The chap I spoke to on their messenger system said they had had a glitch over the weekend. WHY?

We ate out last night at Cote on the promenade near the bridge. Though it is signposted, people still insist on riding their cycles down the very crowded pathway! And why do joggers think it is okay to jog in this area? People are out at restaurants trying to enjoy a meal and/or a drink they should not have to put up with sweaty juggernauts thundering through the place, grunting and splashing all over the place, it's just not cricket! Don't get me started on electric scooters!

Today we are off on a 'boat trip' to Richmond. That'll be different!

Hello.......

2022-05-28T22:51:00.000+01:00

....people, how are you all doing? Me? I have left Banbury and am on my way to the Thames. Current location Wolvercote bridge!

I had a few weeks in Thrupp, when I painted and polished Milly M. When I set off from Thrupp she was looking fine. However, a trip to Yarnton Bridge and a two-day stay, left me shat on by dozens of pigeons, and all my hard work seemed wasted. I cleaned one side of the boat when I moved to Kidlington Green. I am currently at Wolvercote Bridge for a couple of days!

I have witnessed some of the work CRT has completed and also the Sustrans/Council pathway, and I must say I am impressed. I do find it hard to understand the need for Hydraulicizing the Drinkwater lift bridge. The proper solution was properly balancing the bridge. This was also the solution to the Thrupp bridge, but no one at CRT ever listens to boaters.

However, I am now on the downside of the bridge at Wolvercote on the only mooring. Above the bridge, the new path carries on, but there is nowhere to moor. The once narrowing path is now a wide footpath which comes almost to the edge of the canal. No effort has been made to provide any kind of mooring at all.

Well, that's fine but where do the hire boats moor to visit the pub over the bridge. Apparently nowhere! Repairs to the bank here would reduce the number of boats racing at breakneck speed to get to Thrupp, the next pub.

Come on CRT, Wolvercote has long been in need of repairs to the bank so boats could moor securely.

I have noticed that there are no less than 6 boats moored on the offside between Kidlington and Wolvercote. One just before Langford Locks Bridge. One just above Shuttleworth Lock (Dukes Lock). Three! just above Wolvercote Lock. The sixth one escapes me just now, but I will get it.

I will stay here for a couple of days then move on to St Edwards disposal point for water.

Catch ya later! Ciao!

20,000 likes!

2022-05-24T12:18:00.001+01:00

There I was having a disagreement with Susan on the back of the boat. We'd had a bottle of wine or two so I was getting louder and 'f'ier. People at the pub started to take an interest so I played to the crowd. It must have sounded awful but really it was mostly fun...........until. Up pops a camera girl with a mobile poking her nose where it wasn't wanted. I told her to go away it was nothing to do with her.

It was 10 o'clock at night. Susan wanted to take the rubbish half a mile down the towpath to the disposal. I said it could wait until the morning I didn't want to go. I needed to pee but Suze was standing in the hatchway stopping me from going in the boat. All I was saying was, get in the boat or go home, which eventually led to get in the f**king boat or go home. I said it several times getting louder and 'f' ier each time. Susan was playing, but not moving out of my way insisting we should go to the disposal. At no point was there any danger of this escalating. I was annoyed but not angry, after all, I was just about to piss me trousers.

Camera girl is told several times to f*** off. Although we are moored on the towpath she was invading my privacy, sketchy as that may have been at that time. We were in my home! I know she can take pictures anywhere she wants, but she must accept I can object to her intrusion.

So she calls the police even though she had asked Suze if she was OK and she said yes. I heard her say Susan was being held against her will and I was being violent towards her. I was not holding her against her will and if camera girl had listened she would have heard, however vocal I was, I said she was to get in the boat OR go home. By this time we were laughing together at her, though I was still angry at camera girl. Someone else called the police about the girl. When the police arrived they didn't come for me they came for her. Apparently, she is a bit of a troublemaker. They did ask us both if we were OK. I explained what was going on, and Susan explained what was going on. She explained she wasn't scared and felt no danger. The Feds were happy that there was nothing to worry about despite our little show. It was a camera girl they came for she was well known to them.

The lady, whose birthday party it was, apologized to the pub for her behaviour. The police took the girl away from the area and sat her at the front of the pub where she tried to call for a taxi. No taxi was available, she asked the police to take her home which they did. She will undoubtedly put her vid on YouTube or FaceBook or somewhere and get her 20,000 likes and piles of sympathy. I will be treated like shit after you have all seen the vid.

Let me be honest about this, I am quite sure now, thinking back, the vid will make me look horrendous but you had to be there, in our heads, to judge.

We have decided if this should happen again I will burst into a rendition of Nessan Dorma or something similar!

required reading

How much?

2022-04-07T03:11:00.001+01:00

And this little puppy set me back £285.

Did you know.....

2022-03-10T18:52:00.004+00:00

.....that when the USSR broke up NATO promised that they would not move one inch closer to Russia. After all that time it would seem that the promise was just so much hot air. Ukraine is probably the last former USSR country to want to join NATO. Now I don't agree with Putin's actions but ffs the west blatantly lied and Vladimir Putin is pissed!

When is the west going to take responsibility for this clusterfuck?

Republics of the Soviet Union, numbered alphabetically by the English names of the post-soviet states: 1. Armenia, 2. Azerbaijan, 3. Belarus, 4. Estonia, 5. Georgia, 6. Kazakhstan, 7. Kyrgyzstan, 8. Latvia, 9. Lithuania, 10. Moldova, 11. Russia, 12. Tajikistan, 13. Turkmenistan, 14. Ukraine, 15. Uzbekistan

Surprise!

2022-03-09T01:34:00.001+00:00

So the Milly M is now blacked and back on its home mooring. We arrived back after a short stop to collect supplies from the new LIDL store. On Our arrival on the wharf, we found these neatly laid on the boardwalk.

Beautiful English

2022-02-28T00:40:00.128+00:00

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is the longest common word in the English language.

Strengths & screeched are the two longest one-syllable words in English.

Facetious, abstemious, annelidous, arsenious are English words that contain all five vowels in alphabetical order.

Uncopyrightable is the longest English word with no repeating letters.

Stewardesses is one of the longest words typeable on a normal keyboard with the left hand.

Polyphony is one of the longest words typeable on a normal keyboard with the right hand.

Quattuordecillion is a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 45 zeros.
1,000,
000,
000,
000,

000,
000,
000,
000,
000,
000,
000,

000,
000,

000,
000.

Deeded is the only word that is made using only two different letters, each used three times.

Queueing is the only word with five consecutive vowels.

The word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.

The only words with three consecutive double letters are bookkeeping and bookkeeper.

Underground is the only word that begins and ends with "und".

If you spell out every number from 0 to 999, you will find every vowel except for "a". You have to count to one thousand to find an "a".

Q is the only letter that is not used in the name of any of the United States.

The only words with "uu" are vacuum muumuu residuum and continuum.

Subcontinental is the only word that uses each vowel only once and in reverse alphabetical order.

The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is rhythm.

More English words begin with the letter "S" than any other letter of the alphabet.

"I am." is the shortest two words sentence in the English language.

If you were to write out every number name in full (one, two, three, four...), you wouldn't use a single letter B until you reached one billion.

In written English, only one letter in every 510 is a Q.

The shortest -ology is oology, the scientific study of eggs.

11% of the entire English language is just the letter E.

Happy is used three times more often in English than Sad.

Approximately one new word is added to the English language every two hours and around 4,000 new words are added to the English dictionary every year.

Only two English words in current use end in "-gry". They are angry & hungry.

A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a pangram.

The dot over the letter is called a "superscript dot".

In English, the @ symbol is usually called "the at sign" or "the at symbol".

There are only 4 English words in common use ending in "-dous" hazardous, horrendous, stupendous and tremendous.

"No." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

TREVI HOUSE

2022-02-10T01:47:00.009+00:00

You may remember last year we donated money from my advertising account to Trevi house, which is a women's rescue centre in Plymouth. TREVI has been a favourite charity of mine for a number of years. I have received from TREVI House, a response to our donation. Which totalled £110. This included £70 from the ad account plus £40 from my wallet.(I have a habit of losing my wallet and if I get it back I donate half the cash therein to TREVI House. The rest of the contents of my wallet I donate elsewhere to worthy causes) However the response is currently in Oxford, but as soon as I receive it here, in Banbury, I will post it on this page.

TREVI do have a page which can be found here;

About Trevi - Trevi

If you want to donate independently of me please, by all means, do so, they need all the help they can get.

January

2022-02-03T20:09:00.002+00:00

I was going to go away for the weekend, but time was overrun by the Countess Chavagnon and her shopping/social life. We managed to get away Monday pm and I stayed at her house in Oxford for a few days.

I started with the sniffles Monday afternoon and progressed through long bouts of sneezing on Tuesday and was comfortable again on Wednesday. So comfortable in fact that I came home on Thursday arriving in time for a late lunch.

We persisted throughout last month with the Dry January shenanigan, an alcohol fast, that was long overdue. Low and behold we succeeded, never touched a drop! We are feeling quite chuffed and my liver had an opportunity to re-generate. My middle region also managed to do some reshaping. Some, but not much!

Milly M will be going into dry dock next month and various smaller jobs. Gas locker needs attention. One window has to come out for resealing and the internal frames need rubbing down and re-varnishing again. Ooo must get rivets!

Blackened?

2022-01-28T03:02:00.000+00:00

I find it quite odd that people use the word 'blackened' to describe getting the hull done. Moreso they pay a fortune for the privilege! Having a boat blackened should be a very cheap process. One which I am able to do for next to nothing. Best quality materials to EU standards, by a qualified arsonist. £10

One liter of E10 petrol and a match. Job done.

Blackened, as you will have gathered by now, is generally the aftermath of a fire.

We take a boat to be Blacked using Blacking after which the boat has been Blacked.

NIKSWSTDTPMW

When wearing a mask!

2022-01-12T20:24:00.000+00:00

This is what happens when you exhale when wearing a mask. I am not going to comment, just let you see this.

Banbury

2021-12-30T13:01:00.000+00:00

If you know Banbury you will know it is a very wet town/area. Despite the council spending millions on the flood defences, a few years back, little seems to have changed other than now they blame the canal.

When it rains up country a couple of days later the water ends up in the town. This Christmas just gone the water just overtopped the bank and was probably a contributory cause in the sinking of a narrow boat.

The boat which had been listing for several weeks was securely tied with a center line (If you dont know, this is not a good practice). The raising of the water level simply held the boat down causing it to list more and holding its side vent in the engine bay under water.

Not as bad as this is the staff who are dispatched to lower the level of the canal to to stop this sort of thing happening. I am sure they dont realise just how shallow the canal actually is! Dropping the canal just 4 inches puts people on the bottom. Not paying attention and nodding off in the van can easily drop the level 8-10 inches. They did this to me earlier in the year and most of my windows started leaking. The canal is not level fore and aft under the boat so when sitting on the bottom some areas of the baseplate are not supported.

This morning I was woken by a wine bottle rolling across the floor as someone had opened the paddles and dropped the level about 8". So after spending time picking up my stuff off the floor I went back to bed. By the time I awoke and hour or two later the boat was floating again.

Either CRT train their staff better in the responsibility of maintaining water levels or they dredge the canal! One or 'tother or both I'm not fussed, but it is not right to risk damaging peoples homes by failure to train staff!

Oh bloody hell!

2021-12-29T17:46:00.008+00:00

Of all the things that could go wrong

I have to go get

MAN-FLU

Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting the....

2021-12-16T18:07:00.009+00:00

The Tribe is a new restaurant on the Cowley Road. Its at No.21 to be exact, just off the Plain.

It used to be a cold, uninviting Turkish Grill with good food. Now it is a warm, inviting 'Indian' style restaurant with new ideas and a menu to die for!

You wont find traditional Vindaloo Madras Jalfrezi etc. But you will find some exquisite flavours and spices presented to to tantalize your taste buds. Even if you are not fond of spicy food there will be something, not traditional Indian, for you here.

The menu is compact but full and the owner Rohip says he will change it monthly! The wine list is largely £20 and excellent!

There is also an outdoor heated dining area.

Facebook page

Something Else!

2021-12-16T17:10:00.000+00:00

Well says I, Christmas is coming and things are about to change again. My hair has grown........a lot. I am thinking of getting it cut. I know its a stupid time of year to get it cut. And I know if I get it cut I will regret it, but I am, as I often am, hell bent on of doing this.

Lets be serious if I had any hope of doing the right thing, ever, I would never have been on this boat. I would have taken the easy option. Continued to live in my house and worked on the local industrial estate. Retired at 65 and died a tragic death!

Those of you who know me, know I am not that sort of person. We can all do the 'right thing', but what's the point? Life is more than a house, family and security! It's adventure, it's different, it's something else!

I look like my sister!

Poor girl!

Metermaid

2021-11-22T19:56:00.011+00:00

If you know what a 'Metermaid' is you will also know they cost, new, from £160 - £400. If you don't know it looks like this:

It's an 'IP44' plug and socket each with a half metre of Arctic cable which is connected to an inline electric meter. The purpose of this device is to record your electricity consumption when connected to a power power post. You do this in order to be able to pay your electric bill when due.

So the way it works is one end is plugged into the supply and the other is connected to your shoreline cable. The one in the picture is £164. The £400 one replaced one of the short cables with 20 foot of artic cable hence the extra £200+😮😮😮

I'm sorry but this is a rip of, daylight robbery! There is an easier/cheaper way of achieving meter reading. Buy a meter, buy an enclosure, a length of cable and install! That's what I did. Total cost £35.

The only problem is that the mooring owner can't just come along and read the meter when he wants to unless you are around, but you can easily avoid that by emailing him a snapshot of the meter. Sorted. Job done!