Competence competence competence

So I drives all the way the Aberdeen - and it takes a long time mainly as a result of of all the road works on the A96 - due to the last serious bout of flooding - and I goes to the job interview at 4pm - a rotten time for an interview - and it's a dead simple interview really - asking questions the likes of which I've asked hunnerds of candidates in my time - but somehow not the questions I was expecting and somehow flapped and gulped like a drowning fish and totally fluffed that one thank you very much. And I drives home again. And I gets home to be slaughtered by a cold-like virus.

Bleugh.

My thoughts today are with the wet ones. Cumbria and Dumfriesshire. We seem to be in the eye of the storm here - beautifully calm and sunny - but down there looks grim. In 2004 a report by Sir David King, then the UK Govt Chief scientific adviser, predicted that, by the end of this century, what were once considered to be events that will only happen every 150 years, would be happening every 10 years. So the "1000 year" floods we had yesterday will have become events that can be expected to happen every 66 years.

As usual there was the TV footage of the besodden bemoaning the lack of action - "they should do more - build more flood defences" etc etc. You matey-pie, should get out of yer 4X4, and scream for higher taxes so Govt has the funding. Roughly, the UK Govt needs an extra £1bn per year to spend on flood defences if construction is to keep up with the worsening climate.

Climate change is real, we are seeing it in our own lives, the predictions are getting worse and politicians need mandate to do something about stopping it, and for finding the cash to adapt to it. And that it down to you.