Category: Hot Topic

Oops… (normal service will be resumed as soon as possible)

There will be a brief intermission while I sort out the problem with the comment system. I (stupidly, without checking, because nothing ever goes wrong when you’re on the bleeding edge of an upgrade, does it?) upgraded Hot Topic’s WordPress underpinnings to the latest version — 4.0 — only to find that now comments don’t display properly. I’ve tracked it down to a problem with the theme (the code that makes HT look the way it does), and I now have to work out how to fiddle with things to get them back. There may be a marked change in the site’s appearance…

Hot Topic hiatus, or paws for thought?

Over the next week, my posting frequency trend line is going to take a sharp dip — mainly because if we choose tomorrow and a week hence as our end points — which, as we all know, is far too short to be blogologically significant — there will be a marked absence of posts. Having got the vineyard ready for netting (which will start happening at 8-30am tomorrow), I will be heading north to Nelson, there to board a boat for six days tootling around the Abel Tasman and D’Urville Island. I will check in from time to time when communication technologies allow, but if anybody thinks I’m going to disturb a few days fishing, swimming, walking and eating (and drinking good wine) by posting on climate matters then they are going to be royally disappointed. If you’d like to know a little more about where we’re heading – try here.

Feel free to treat this as another open thread. (Image nicked from John “viral kitten” Cook at The Conversation)

Denial Tango 2014

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_eNQcdwDo8&w=480]

Here’s a new recording by Aussie group Men With Day Jobs of their climate classic The Denial Tango, accompanied by a rather striking video. Men With Day Jobs are Rod Crundwell, Stafford Sanders and Kim Constable (from left to right in the pix in the video) and their new album “Deep in Denial” is due for release early next year.

I’d go with Tony Abbott, It’s just a load of crap

This round-the-world disaster is an evil greedy trap

‘Cause everybody knows the world is flat

I posted the full lyrics back in 2011…

Santa Baby (and other views)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMyF9fDKzE&w=480]

Christmas morning has dawned sunny and warm chez Hot Topic, and there’s a pile of presents waiting to be opened. I doubt that any will be what Eartha Kitt had in mind when she recorded Santa Baby in 1953, but she makes a compelling case for Christmas largesse to be directed her way. This afternoon the weather is expected to turn to custard (or, perhaps, brandy butter) and when the rain sets in my mood may turn to match Eric Idle’s rather more ascerbic (and sweary – definitely NSFW) take on the festive season:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H2mrV6vSPY&w=480]

And if you’re feeling at all gloomy about prospects for the human race, then I have the perfect song for you. Peter Blegvad and Andy Partridge ((From their 2012 album, Gonwards.)) assure us that worse is on the way — a truth we will all have to live with.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qHHTqPvA1w&w=480]

Normal service will be resumed when the mince pies are finished.

Normal service will be resumed shortly

Something of a global warming (coverage) hiatus has hit Hot Topic in the last couple of days, courtesy of the rather dramatic gale that hit my part of New Zealand on Tuesday evening. We are all well, and suffered no damage to our house — but there’s a hell of a lot of tidying up to do to damaged trees and fences, and we are still without power and mobile phone coverage. With luck we’ll get reconnected in the next day or so. Normal bloggage will resume as soon as I finish chainsawing fallen branches and clearing debris.