{"id":129,"date":"2011-02-06T09:17:52","date_gmt":"2011-02-06T09:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/wordpress\/?p=129"},"modified":"2011-02-06T09:17:52","modified_gmt":"2011-02-06T09:17:52","slug":"6-february-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/2011\/02\/06\/6-february-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"6 February 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"What a difference a week can make. Last weekend we were shivering in Arctic-like freezing conditions; \u201cIf our eyes we’d close, then the\u00a0lashes froze, till sometimes we couldn’t see.\u201d<\/em> This week, Spring has arrived.<\/p>\n

Well, perhaps I exaggerate to some extent but yesterday, Saturday, the temperature got up to 13 degrees Celsius (55.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and, at least in terms of the temperature, it was tolerably comfortable. Mind you, it was overcast and blowing a gale \u2013 branches of large trees and the occasional small child flew past the window at regular intervals \u2013 but one could almost be forgiven for believing that Punxsutawney Phil had indeed predicted an early Spring. Earlier in the week we even witnessed swarms of small insects making their way in the world for the first time. The birds, I suspect, were delighted to have fresh meat on the menu but I don\u2019t imagine it will last long. The next cold spell is forecast for next week.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Interestingly, even the Guardian had an article on Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. It seems that his recent track record leaves something to be desired \u2013 only a 30% success rate in predicting the end of winter. You could do better than that by simply tossing a coin!<\/p>\n

In contrast to our temperate conditions, when I checked the weather in Hanover, New Hampshire, as I sometimes do, I was dismayed to see that it was registering -21 degrees Celsius! That\u2019s -5.8 degrees Fahrenheit in old money which means, if my seventh grade maths is still to be relied upon, a difference of more than 60 degrees F between here and there. Whoa! That is cold.<\/p>\n

And then, to cap it all off, earlier in the week Donna posted the following image of the weather forecast for the week to come in Los Angeles on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\"LA<\/p>\n

It prompted me to suggest that Facebook needs a \u201cThat\u2019s not fair!\u201d button to complement it\u2019s \u201cLike\u201d button.<\/p>\n

\"Sandy'sWe were watching television on Friday evening when we spotted something which looked extraordinarily familiar. In fact, it looked very much like the sculpture of the bulrushes we have in our lounge produced by our favourite sculptor Sanford Stragnell. I\u2019ll bet this is the first time his stuff has ever appeared on British television.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s no mystery at all of course. The programme we were watching was entitled \u201cRelocation: Phil Down Under\u201d and it\u2019s a programme where a chap named Phil Spencer assists people searching for new homes in Australia. In normal circumstances this is not the sort of programme I would normally watch but this episode happened to be about my former boss Julie Leigh and her husband Ian who have emigrated to Australia to be near their two children, both of whom have settled there. I bought Julie the bulrushes in question as a present some years back after she admired ours once upon a time and, in the pre-migration filming the producers clearly thought they would make a splendid back drop. Sandy, feel free to use \u201cas seen on British television\u201d in any advertising materials you produce.<\/p>\n

I ran across the following cartoon on the Time web site and didn\u2019t understand it at all.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

Then, a few days later, I ran across an article somewhere which enlightened me about the revelation that we\u2019ve been using the \u201cwrong\u201d zodiac signs for about 2000 years. Now, I am terribly confused. As it is, I was always on the cusp between Sagittarius and Capricorn. So, on the one hand I may be an outstanding entertainer and conversationalist while at the same time I\u2019ve got Capricorn\u2019s melancholy and stern temperament. Now, it seems, I am a full-blooded Sagittarius. Fortunately, I guess I\u2019ll be able to adjust somewhat better than some folks to judge by a couple of comments I ran across including:<\/p>\n

\u201cDarn it, the whole time I thought I was an introvert, now to find out that I\u2019m an extrovert. I\u2019m going to need awhile to unravel my life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

or especially:<\/p>\n

\u201cDude, I\u2019m a Leo and always will be a Leo, no matter where the sun is on August 5th. Besides, this very expensive tattoo on my right shoulder tells me so.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

May the force be with you,<\/p>\n

Greg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a difference a week can make. Last weekend we were shivering in Arctic-like freezing conditions; \u201cIf our eyes we’d close, then the\u00a0lashes froze, till sometimes we couldn’t see.\u201d This week, Spring has arrived. Well, perhaps I exaggerate to some extent but yesterday, Saturday, the temperature got up to 13 degrees Celsius (55.4 degrees Fahrenheit) … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “6 February 2011”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9w76b-25","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stragnell.com\/befoulednews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}