Mr Mist’s Blog

It’s reported that Captain Pickard, or, in real life, Patrick Stewart, is to be knighted in the New Year honours list. I can only agree, and say “make it so”. A very varied and talented actor, he is.

In other news, we are hearing more confirmation that Schumacher is close to an F1 return with the Mercedes team – though nothing yet from the man himself, or the team. I’m in two minds about this return. I wouldn’t want it to be a damp squib, because he left on a high, but nor would I relish the return to his utter dominance. A good scrap would be interesting.

Loads of peeps were trapped in the Channel Tunnel last night, after freezing temperatures on both sides of the tunnel contributed to a mass break-down of the trains. It appears that on-board staff had not been properly trained in what to do, which is not great. Think everyone is out now, but they were stuck for some time. Not great at all.

Lastly, WordPress 2.9 is out, with bucket loads of new functionality. If you run WordPress on your blog site, you should upgrade now. Make sure your host meets the new requirements first, though – the MySQL and PHP version requirements have increased to 4.1.2 and 4.3 respectively.

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Christmas 2009 is fast approaching. Quite a lot has happened this year really, for us of course the biggest event was the arrival of our daughter Niamh, who is now just over four months old, so this will be her first Christmas. In the wider world, the global economy is picking itself back up, so (locally) that means that the two building sites surrounding our house are putting up more houses and getting a bit closer to finishing (though still not that quickly really.)

The latest entertainment thing is the battle between X-Factor and Rage Against The Machine for the christmas number 1. RATM’s Killing In The Name Of has been championed by a Facebook campaign and the last I heard it was actually pretty close. I suspect though that the X Factor single will overtake by chart time, especially given that simple volume will come into play in the end, and the X Factor single will have been mass-produced in sufficient quantities to assure the top position.

Of course it’s always amusing to get to this time of year, because it comes with the traditional Steve Brookstein anti-X-Factor outburst. He really should listen to fellow contestant Rowetta and just let it go.

We’ve had some snow this past day, and it’s currently about 50-50 as to whether we will be seeing a white Christmas this year. I wouldn’t mind a bit of snow. But not too much, obviously, don’t want to go over the top.

So yes, I hope you all have a very good Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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There’s been crazy flooding in Cumbria, where about a foot of water has fallen, destroying bridges and all sorts. More rain is expected today, though not on the same scale.

In black-hole news, the LHC is back in operation again, 14 months after its initial switch on and subsequent damage. If they manage to avoid another liquid gas leakage disaster, they might be able to do some physicsey discovery things this time.

Lastly can we all have a collective “aww” for Katie Price, who feels picked on in the I’m a a celebrity Jungle, after being selected by the public to do all the trials. Boo-hoo. I can hardly find anyone to feel less sorry for, and really agree with the summary by the fellow contestants – she got what she wished for in this case.

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Jenson Button has taken this year’s F1 World Championship finishing in 5th place (from 14th on the grid). Barrichello, who was his cloest rival, suffered a puncture in the closing stages of the Grand Prix, but would not have been able to take the championship to a final round due to Jenson’s finishing position.

The finish also granted the constructors’ championship to Brawn GP, in their first season of racing.

The race was not without incident, with crashes galour towards the start, and a dramatic looking moment when Kovalainen took off from the pits dragging a fuel hose behind him, which promptly sprayed fuel over the car of Kimi Raikkonen. Luckily everyone was ok.

Congratulations to all!

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In a genius move, Top Gear’s James May is planning to construct a house (full human sized) out of Lego bricks. There is a web page for the Toy Story project, though it doesn’t yet mention the Lego House. I think this is a great idea, and would be loads of fun. I hope it comes to fruition. Next weekend sees a public building day for the project. Excellent!

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