Dance on a Volcano

Weather : never thought I'd say this, but hurrah for a bit of good old British drizzle!

Listen up, subconscious. I know it was warm last night, but did you really have to give me an astonishingly vivid nightmare about trying to escape from a Mount St Helens style volcanic blast complete with lahars, pyroclastic flows and exploding rocks? I woke up at around half past four with my heart pounding and completely unable to get back to sleep, and so consequently I am knackered today.

I note that Peter Mandelson is living up to his reputation as the prince of darkness by sticking the knife into the quivering corpse of New Labour when it is too late to achieve anything useful other than selling a few copies of his memoirs. If Gordon Brown was as flawed a politician as it now appears, then don't you think you would have done the country and the Labour Party a better service by saying so at the time? Gee, thanks Mandy. To really rub it in, he is taking Murdoch's money so the story is tucked away behind the Times paywall.

One odd thing from the motorway this morning to report. Coming up to the junction with the M62 in heavy-ish traffic, I saw a set of traffic lights up ahead, going through the usual cycle of red to amber to green. It was only as I got closer that I realised that they were on the back of a motorway maintenance van, but switched on and working. Most odd, and probably a bit dangerous if somebody hasn't quite woken up on a Monday morning.

Anyhoo, brief blog because it's Skeptics in the Pub tonight - rah!