A very Merry Christmas to both my readers!

Bruges

Long time no post. This is partly because, earlier this week, I went with my wife on a brief city break to Bruges. We were quite lucky with the weather, though it was a bit on the dull side for interesting photography. Here is one of my shots:-

Click on it to enlarge

That's a very standard view of Bruges. I think my favourite shot was this:-

Click on it to enlarge

Almost everywhere I turned in Bruges there seemed to be some sort of delight for the eye. When I first looked at my photographs back home I was quite disappointed - they didn't seem to do justice to the pleasure of actually being there. Never mind - we both enjoyed the trip enormously.

To see more of my photographic efforts in Bruges, click here.

Today's Observer

Today's Observer has a number of articles relevant to recent posts.

Andrew Rawnsley casts a sceptical eye over George Osborne's enthusiasm for gas. Specifically, he says that there is scant evidence that the reserves of shale gas in the UK are economically recoverable. If the "dash for gas" proceeds and the home-grown shale gas bonanza fails to materialise, the UK will find itself dependent on potentially unstable foreign sources of supply. Meanwhile, investment in gas will crowd out investment in renewables and the UK will find itself unable to meet its commitments on emissions reductions.

George Osborne also comes under attack from Will Hutton, who adds his weight to a suspicion I have had  for a long time: that Osborne is economically illiterate. Hutton puts it very succinctly:

Denialism seems to be on the up

I was taken aback recently when an acquaintance of mine unexpectedly revealed him/herself (to make him/her as anonymous as possible) to be a global warming denialist. By "denialist" I mean someone who puts forward the view that the threat of global warming is not on such as scale that it requires serious action to mitigate it. So I include "lukewarmists", like Peter Lilley.