Fire fighting foxes, ethical purchasing and carbon rich holidays

How much does it cost the BBC to have a live link to a journo standing by a partially frozen lake near Leeds? Deridable is a word I rarely use - maybe because it's not a word. But really.

Meanwhile it is cold - and lighting fires is a key skill. My favoured starting point is the Sunday Herald - not the Gaurdian. And I have a pretty good success rate. The problem I've got just now is keeping the fire going once it's lit - and this I put down to ethical purchasing. As I've mentioned before there is a local community forest. It grows shite wood and sells it as shite logs which make for shite fires. I mean the wood is so light it virtually floats up the chimney on the strength of the draught - and that spaced out cell structure makes it jolly good at absorbing water. So it tends to sit in the grate steaming to itself.

In such conditions a copy of the Northern Times is essential. A good old fashioned starved-of-investment, unencumbered-with-content local rag, read by everyone and still in broadsheet format - so it's big enough to cover the fireplace and create a draught for nurturing reluctant fires.

Meanwhile Firefox is really dogging me. It keeps crashing. I've completely re-installed it and it still crashes so I think I may be off on Safari soon.