Mikes weather bits & Photo Blog: Mandela dies - - fine man & Strong winds yesterday

Every arm of the news media today is covered with the story of Mandela's death yesterday.

The Sky News article has this picture of him revisiting his cell on Robben island as their leader. The text of the article describes how people are saddened but celebrating the life of the great man - - -

A story from yesterday relates how we wont have to display a Vehicle Excise Duty Disc or as most people call it a Road Tax Disc from next October. The main idea is to save £7m in administration costs and what with the police using "numberplate recognition equipment" which instantly checks if the vehicle has tax and insurance the paper discs are no longer needed.

My take - - - you'll see even more people driving without road tax or insurance hoping to "get away with it" and why if the cops use "numberplate recognition equipment" are there so many cretins driving around without tax or insurance right now? - - -

My favourite paper for outrageous headlines did itself proud yesterday

Nor only did you get a £5 off voucher to spend at Aldi but there was news of a "wonder drug to cure dementia" A horrible thing to be afflicted with but this must be the 10th "wonder cure" on the front pages in as many months. Poor old Nigella is in the firing line as well with a rather splendid photo of her marching into court. Ah well no doubt she'll emerge relativity unscathed from the episode - - -

Here's an interesting twist on "Passwords" Try as you like to have as few as possible some people use the same one for everything! Called in this article a Chocolate Teapot password

This story relates how 2 million passwords were dumped online by, most probably a criminal gang having scooped up the passwords using a botnet called "pony" (BOTNET a network of hijacked home computers) - - - How come there's not some sort of alarm that pops up if your home computer is "running itself so to speak?

Closer to home - - yesterday's weather was rather extreme with some clear sunny patches interspersed with heavy bursts of rain and very high winds

At the height of one particularly windy period I took this pic I thought at one pint my anemometer wind gauge pole was going to snap it was whipping back and forth so much. (its on a pole at the end of the fence and directly above the white vans back end.

Here a short video turn up the volume for the wind effect.

Across the road roof tiles started to come off one of the houses luckily the winds subsided enough to limit the hole to about 3ft across.

I ventured up into the garden to check on the new fences and was pleased to see they were handling the 40mph+ winds admirably. I spotted though that the Peak Organics cover for there "bread oven" had been completely destroyed. I went across there and covered up the structure with the canvas cover which was devoid of all the poles which had been supporting it. Weighing down the canvas with rocks I retreated back indoors.

Safely indoors also was our cat Sainsbury

He likes to chase the leaves when its windy but there was too much debris flying around yesterday for him. He's has been affected by Toms death and stays in a lot at the moment. Deaf as Tom was his presence was something that Sainsbury always had so I guess he's missing that safe feeling.

Talking of Tom heres a pic from 2003 with Tom and his old Sparring partner Grumble, always shortened to "grumpy". Tom would meciliessly bite Grumpy's legs and jump on him to bite his neck . Apart from crying poor old grumpy never fought back and always came back for more.