Monday 21 July

Yesterday, I returned to Stornoway by plane at 5.50pm. I left my father's at 7.50 am (local time) to go on the train to Schiphol Airport. It was pouring with rain in Holland. Schiphol was heaving, and it took a while to go through check-in. The plane left a smidgen late at 12.30, and very quickly rose above the rainclouds. These extended halfway across the North Sea, but on reaching the North Kent coastline at Birchington the sun was out, and remained out all the way to Gatwick. It was a scenic end to the first leg of the journey.

At Gatwick, I had to transfer from the North to the South Terminal by rail shuttle. At the South Terminal, there was some time to spare before the 2.35 flight departed for Inverness. This proved to be a lesson in geography, as the aircraft flew the length of the country, with good views out over the western coastline. The northern coast of Wales was laid out beautifully, with Anglesey, Great Ormes Head and the Wirral. Further north, Blackpool, Lancaster and southern Cumbria moved into view, until high cloud obscured the outlook. On descending over the Highlands, the plane left the clouds over Loch Ericht and Dalwhinnie, following the line of the A9 north to Aviemore, thence over Culloden Moor to Nairn and Inverness airport.

It was sunny and mild at Inverness, with a pleasant smell of heather and wild flowers. The staff were most helpful, pleasant and polite, and made sure that my bag had followed me all the way from Amsterdam. The wee plane to Stornoway departed on time at 5.10. The pilot promised us a delight of views, but the only good view was had over the city of Inverness with Loch Ness and the Kessock Bridge. A little further west, we sat in clouds all the way to Stornoway.

It was cold and very windy in Lewis, and I was freezing by the time the wee service bus turned up to return me to Mrs B. in the town.

Karadzic captured

The former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, has been captured in Serbia and is being processed for extradition to the Yugoslav War Crimes tribunal in The Hague. Karadzic has been on the run since the 1990s. Karadzic's worst crime is his alleged involvement in the massacre of 7,000 civilians in the enclave of Srebrenica in 1995. His henchman, Ratko Mladic, remains at large.

Hurricane update - 20 July

At 15.45 GMT (11.45 EDT), the National Hurricane Center declared tropical storm Dolly, located east of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The storm will traverse the peninsula and reemerge over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a good deal of disagreement over the path of this storm, but it seems likely that it may make landfall near the Texas / Mexico border as a strong tropical storm or a hurricane, early on Thursday.

PLEASE RELAY

20 July

I shall resume blogging on this journal as of next Tuesday, 22 July. Tomorrow I am travelling for nearly 12 hours, so I'll be pretty knackered at the end of it all. I have immensely enjoyed my visit to Holland, although the reason that sparked it off was very sad. Nonetheless, time has come to return northwest. I'll see y'all on Tuesday.

aoljurlAdd, aoljurlAdd_1

Hurricane update - 19 July

Tropical depression 03 has formed off the coast of the Carolinas. Winds are increasing, but at the moment not exceeding 35 mph (force 7 on the Beaufort scale). This system will become a tropical storm later today, and will amble northeast, parallel to the coastline before being scooped up by a frontal system to the north.

Hurricane local statements are in force in SC, NC and VA, but I must stress that this is NOT a hurricane. The main problem with TD 03 is the amount of rainfall - 2 to 4 inches. Please check the NHC website for 6-hourly updates and further details.

Solar Eclipse

On 1 August, as Cathy reminds us, a solar eclipse will grace the skies of Europe and Asia. Starting at 08.04 GMT and lasting for 4½ hours until 12.36 GMT, the UK will see between 20% and 40% of the sun's surface obscured at around 10.15 am. More info on this official NASA site.

WARNING
NEVER look DIRECTLY at the sun, with the naked eye, binoculars or darkened glass. Your sight may be irreversibly damaged or lost.

Hurricane update - 18 July

Everyone in the states of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina should be aware that a low pressure system off southern Georgia could be turning into a tropical depression later today or tomorrow. The system is moving north northeast, parallel to the coast. Heavy rain is possible in these areas; please monitor bulletins from your local National Weather Service buro, as well as the NHC into the evening and night.

PLEASE RELAY

Hurricane update - 17 July

The NHC are watching a low pressure system 75 miles east of Jacksonville, FL, which shows some potential to develop into a possible tropical system. It is not directly affecting weather in FL or GA, although a line of showers is draped along the eastern seaboard of both states.

The Netherlands Antilles are affected by a tropical wave, which will bring heavy showers and strong winds. A tropical wave is a seasonal weather phenomenon in the Atlantic, where bulges of moist air are released from the African continent. These waves tend to be the sparking points for hurricanes to form.

At this point in time, I'm monitoring 4 tropical cyclones around the world, as well as three pieces of weather that could become that. A typhoon has just passed near Taipei, the Taiwanese capital. Two systems in the Eastern Pacific, and tropical storm Bertha, which has been around for more than 2 weeks; NHC are currently on their 59th advisory. It could become one of the longest living storms in the Atlantic.

2,200,000%

The inflation percentage in Zimbabwe at the moment. Mugabe still in power, and likely to remain there until he goes to meet his Maker. Country in economic melt-down, but as long as RM is in power, all is well in his world. Everybody else can go hang - he used that quote in relation to the United Kingdom, but you can safely add another 6 billion or so people to that. I despair.

Monday 14 July

Olive Riley, the world's oldest blogger aged 108, sadly passed away at a nursing home in Australia last Saturday. With the help of a friend, she posted reminiscences on her life on the web. Her blog is currently inaccessible due to too high and interest; a satellite blog is available.

The president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has been indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal of The Hague, for alleged crimes against his own population in Darfur. However, Sudan does not recognise the jurisdiction of the tribunal, so he won't be seen around The Hague just yet. He should be though, with the way things have gone in Darfur recently.

Alerts sorted

I seemed to remember that AOL Alerts cannot cope if you have more than 200 alerts outstanding. I had 217. So, I deleted all the alerts I am currently following through Google Reader, reducing them to a manageable 23, including the private journals. I hope these now work.

Alerts & AOHell

Those of you who have given me access to your private journals please bear with me. AOL is no longer permitting me to add new alerts to the list, and private journals cannot be read with a feed-reader. I'll just have to make a list in Firefox with the URL's. Sorry.

J-land

As several of you will  have found out by now, I've decided to resume reading everybody's journals. I think I have all stations covered, except the private journals. Can all whose private journals I read please email me direct. I have visited a couple tonight, but there are quite a few more. I made a list, which I unfortunately left in Scotland. I will not be posting much just yet, more likely on the Shell Gallery journal. See you around!

Technical advice

If you hear of any people suddenly losing Internet access after July 8th who are using a ZoneAlarm firewall, please tell them to access the Net from a different PC (one that does NOT use ZA) to view this advice.

Apparently, a Windows update clashes with ZoneAlarm, causing it to deny all Internet access. Basically, the best thing to do is to un-install the update (through Add Programs on your Control Panel). It does NOT apply to Windows Vista.

Five Years of J-land

Donna very kindly made a tag for our 5th anniversary. Please note it's an animation, so you CANNOT store it on AOL, 'cause it will not work. Feel free to snag, if you haven't already got it.

Alerts and all that

Officially, you should receive alerts as pop-ups and/or emails. When you go to http://alerts.aol.com, and click on My Alerts, you'll see the names of the journals you've subscribed to. Personally, I find this list less than helpful. If they but put the blogs on as URLs, I'd be a lot happier. Anyway, an icon like the AIM logo should show in bright red, and a little envelope should appear in blue, indicating that these are the methods by which your alerts are delivered. You can switch an alert on or off that way.

Google Reader is what is known as a feed-reader. Every time a site (such as a blog) is updated, a signal is released from part of the code that this has happened - a feed. Feed readers can receive this signal and flag up the new entry on a blog on a site like Google Reader. There are plenty of other websites that can do the same.

For Reader to work, you need the URL of a journal. When you view a blog, the address bar should show that (the bit starting with http://journals.aol.com or co.uk). Highlight the URL and copy it (press Ctrl-C), then go to the feed reader and add the URL (by pressing Ctrl-V) in the bit where you can add a subscription.

Alerts

I've decided to ditch AOL's New Entry alerts. When I come back, I shall be monitoring new entries through Google Reader, which appears to be slightly more reliable. Comment alerts I shall continue to receive, although I have to go to a non-AOL email to collect those. Don't even think of asking.

Resumption

I am slowly resuming topical entries on Northern Trip to get back into the swing of things. I am not yet resuming my J-land activities, as I am not ready for that at this point. Thanks to all for welcoming my return here.

Don't forget I'm currently running the Shell Gallery blog as a personal journal.

Piper Alpha

6 July 1988

A black day in the history of North Sea oil exploration.

167 men die on board the Piper Alpha platform in the North Sea after a gaspipe ruptures, causing a huge fire. The horrifying images are etched on the minds of all who work in that industry, as well as of their relatives, friends, neighbours and communities. The BBC has published a good but chilling account on this page. Lessons have been learned, but those that died will not come back. Those with scarring, physical or emotional, will not be much helped by that.

I know one or two people who work in the oil industry, and their tale is one of money before men. On one rig, a man was killed instantly in an accident. His corpse was covered in a tarpaulin and his co-workers ordered to continue operations over the body. The production of oil may not be interrupted without serious cause, as national interests are at stake.

This entry is dedicated to the memory of those who died on Piper Alpha.
This entry is dedicated to those who suffered injury of whichever form there.

Tags: piper, alpha

Betancourt

Ingrid Betancourt, Colombian politician of French/Colombian extraction, was finally freed from captivity earlier this week. The subterfuge employed by the Colombian armed forces to do so without bloodshed deserves the credit it merits. The political pressure, brought about by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French head of state, appears to have attracted a lot of praise too. Whilst being happy for Mrs Betancourt that she is out of the hands of those who held her against her will, I don't see what all the fuss is about. The FARC movement are holding more than 700 hostages, most of them not as high profile as this lady, and several were previously freed or released.

Ingrid Betancourt was seized in 2002 when she was campaigning to become president of Colombia. As such, she tried to engage the FARC movement in an effort at national reconciliation - and FARC seized her, as it has taken hundreds hostage. It was almost to be expected. The Colombian rebels have been severely weakened in recent times, not least because several of their leaders have been killed or died naturally.

I just hope that this spectacular action will be the prelude to the release of all of FARC's hostages, and the dissolution of the rebel movement. Methinks Colombia should be united in its battle against the cocaine barons, not divided.