Climate or weather: it's too damned warm

It’s so damn mild; it doesn’t feel even remotely like mid November. In fact I’d say it feels more like early October, only the fact that it gets dark by 5pm gives it away.

According to the paper, average temperatures so far this month have been consistently around 3.5°c above the seasonal norm and is heading yet again, to be the warmest on record. Apparently, unlike spring, autumnal records are hard to come by. The season is far more variable, but one ecologist, Tim Sparks at Coventry University has noticed an unusual way of picking up at least some visual data.

A week ago today, the 92nd Remembrance Day event took place at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. The ceremony has taken place at the same place at the same time every year since 1919, when George V laid the first wreath. The plane trees there today are the same plane trees that were there at the end of the First World War and they appear in photographs and newsreels of each and every Remembrance Day ceremony.

In the earlier pictures the trees have uniformly bare branches; autumn has long taken the leaves. More recent photos show them still covered with leaves. This year many of them were still green. Apparently the most noticeable change has come in the last 20 years.

Now I think about it, when was the last time it rained properly, either..?

And another thing...