Tag: Hot Topic

New year, new theme (2016)

The new look, that is. The WordPress official theme of the year, and I like it enough to make it Hot Topic‘s new look. Simpler for me to maintain than the old, very customised theme, but it does mean we’ve lost the comment editing facility. Sorry about that. Meanwhile, please use this as an excuse to discuss whatever climate-related issues you like. More substantive posts may appear soon.

[Update #2 Feb 2nd: I may have tracked the comment issue down to a conflict with an anti-spam plug in. We’ll see… Thanks to Andy and Mr February for helping me try to diagnose the problem. GR]

[Update #3 Feb 4th: The Jetpack guys at WordPress are trying to unpick this problem. Thanks for your patience. GR]

[Update #4: Working again, but without “social log in” enabled, while WP fix the code. Thanks again to everyone who helped us diagnose the problem. GR]

[Update #5: And while we’re on the subject, please be warned that very long comments are difficult to post, because of a coding fault in the theme – basically the “post” button disappears… So try to keep your thoughts succinct, until the theme is updated. 😉 GR]

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)

Santa Baby (and other views)

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:

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.

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.