On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in
all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news
programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have
in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied
upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,
I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate
through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being
totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or
Edgar Allan Poe.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks.
'To do is to be' - Nietsche
'To be is to do' - Kant
'Do be do be do' - Sinatra

On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in
all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news
programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have
in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied
upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,
I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate
through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being
totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or
Edgar Allan Poe.


I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at
secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly hall,
and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local paper, the
following evening, they made out that my school was on fire, and the
teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark Twain that said,
“Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".

On Friday, 19 July 2013 19:57:30 UTC+1, Jim Cannon wrote:
What an utter DISGRACE this organisation is. A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due. A month later we are all dying of heat exhaustion. Who on earth is running this bunch of showers? Any other organisation that was run so INEPTLY would have gone under years ago. Come on Cameron make these cuts to the MetO immediately and give the cash to another weather organisation that knows their arse from their elbow



Yes the 'crisis summat is up' meeting several weeks ago in panic that the penny had well and truly drop that for all the mantras on AGW, disruptive climate change, weird weather and so on they decided to try and have their AGW cake and heat it.

They hit upon this: yes the world is still warming and suffering AGW, climate disruption , or what ever they call it at the moment and the reason our summers have been so wet and cool was precisely due to climate disruption and all that see ice melt in the Arctic. Yes absolutely the hastily gathered experts concluded, the cooler summers are even more a sign that the weather gods, Gaia and Al Gorea are displeased as they have robbed us of our summers. So that was/is the future, relentless AGW melting all the winter arctic sea each year causing cooler wetter summers .

I can only conclude, that if that is the theory then the drought and heat we've had since the 'summat' meeting has been caused by all the cold water freezing up again magically and mysteriously over the last month.

Funny thing how the human 5% additional Co2 to the atmosphere can make so much difference -but it can.

On Saturday, 20 July 2013 08:38:59 UTC+1, Col wrote:

I don't necessarily 'believe' it but I'm looking at how this must appear
to the general public. First they get told to expect 10 miserable, wet
summers

Or rather the media siphon off the buzzwords and dumb down the message to a sensationalist one!

Richard

"Joe Egginton" wrote in message
...
On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in
all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news
programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have
in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied
upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,
I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate
through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being
totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or
Edgar Allan Poe.


I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at
secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly hall,
and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local paper, the
following evening, they made out that my school was on fire, and the
teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark Twain that said,
"Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".


It is not the fault of the press. The public don't want to hear about the
banal truth. They want a good story. So the press has to give them good
stories or pack up shop.

What scientist have to do is understand this. If they want to get a message
across to the public, they have to wrap it up in an entertaining story. The
BBQ summer was a good story, but it backfired. So feeding the press is
not an easy job :-(

Cheers, Alastair.

On 2013-07-20 09:43:00 +0000, Joe Egginton said:

On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in
all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news
programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have
in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied
upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,
I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate
through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being
totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or
Edgar Allan Poe.


I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at
secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly hall,
and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local paper, the
following evening, they made out that my school was on fire, and the
teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark Twain that said,
“Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".

Ok, I take the point; but I still think that over the last 15-20 years
with the advent of 24 hour rolling news channels, the media have so
much news space to fill that the endless regurgitation of the same
sensationalist junk has lowered the standards much further.

On Saturday, 20 July 2013 11:37:38 UTC+1, yttiw wrote:
On 2013-07-20 09:43:00 +0000, Joe Egginton said:



On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:

On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100

yttiw wrote:



On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:



On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:

A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.



Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.



If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact

that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that

statement?



No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news" in

all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv rolling news

programmes.



Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now have

in this country.





'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be relied

upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way. Since then,

I've come across numerous times when articles have been inaccurate

through bias or incompetence.



A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as being

totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark Twain or

Edgar Allan Poe.





I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at

secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly hall,

and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local paper, the

following evening, they made out that my school was on fire, and the

teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark Twain that said,

“Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".



Ok, I take the point; but I still think that over the last 15-20 years

with the advent of 24 hour rolling news channels, the media have so

much news space to fill that the endless regurgitation of the same

sensationalist junk has lowered the standards much further.

Just remind me: we are talking about the same organisation that took time to praise Al Gore on his Noble Peace prize yet failed to comment when he sold his ailing liberal media outlet to fossil fuel accumulated wealth?

On Saturday, 20 July 2013 10:57:11 UTC+1, Richard Dixon wrote:
On Saturday, 20 July 2013 08:38:59 UTC+1, Col wrote:



I don't necessarily 'believe' it but I'm looking at how this must appear

to the general public. First they get told to expect 10 miserable, wet

summers



Or rather the media siphon off the buzzwords and dumb down the message to a sensationalist one!



Richard

Unlike UKMO


HEAT WARNING LEVEL 5000!!!!!!!

Seriously if aliens had to base the UK weather/climate on the last decade of UKMO's warning system they would get the impressions that a climatic disaster had taken place.

On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 11:18:20 +0100
"Alastair McDonald" wrote:


"Joe Egginton" wrote in message
...
On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news"
in all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv
rolling news programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now
have in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be
relied upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way.
Since then, I've come across numerous times when articles have
been inaccurate through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as
being totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark
Twain or Edgar Allan Poe.


I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at
secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly
hall, and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local
paper, the following evening, they made out that my school was on
fire, and the teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark
Twain that said, "Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".


It is not the fault of the press. The public don't want to hear about
the banal truth. They want a good story. So the press has to give
them good stories or pack up shop.

What scientist have to do is understand this. If they want to get a
message across to the public, they have to wrap it up in an
entertaining story. The BBQ summer was a good story, but it
backfired. So feeding the press is not an easy job :-(


It doesn't matter what you say to the press, or how you say it, they
will print what they want. forty-odd years ago, I read a 2-page article
in the Mail about severe ice conditions off East Greenland which
contained a lot of quotes from someone in the long-range forecast group
at the Met Office - Ratcliffe, I think - which were total rubbish. When
I got to work, he phoned me to ask if I'd seen the article and to state
that none of the quotes attributed to him bore any relationship to what
he'd said.

Unconnected to the Met Office but pertinent to the above event, I was
talking to someone about ten years ago who had been misquoted by the
press many times so, for the next interview, he took along a recorder
and asked the interviewers if they agreed to him recording the
interview; they had no objection. The article appeared with a load of
quotes that had nothing to do with what he said. He asked for a meeting
with them to discuss the matter. They went through the recording and,
for each quote, identified a word from one part of the recording and
another from somewhere else, etc. Their defence was - and they couldn't
see what was wrong with it - a version of the Eric Morecambe defence of,
'we printed all the right words but not necessarily in the right
order.'


--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks.
'To do is to be' - Nietsche
'To be is to do' - Kant
'Do be do be do' - Sinatra

On 20/07/2013 19:09, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 11:18:20 +0100
"Alastair McDonald" wrote:


"Joe Egginton" wrote in message
...
On 20/07/2013 09:58, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2013 09:40:43 +0100
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-07-19 23:06:37 +0000, Adam Lea said:

On 19/07/13 19:57, Jim Cannon wrote:
A month ago we were told 10 rubbish summer seasons were due.

Another one who doesn't understand probabilities.

If I said Miami has a warmer climate than London, would the fact
that one day last week London was hotter than Miami disprove that
statement?

No, but you can guarantee that that fact would be headline "news"
in all the tabloids and repeated every 15 minutes on the tv
rolling news programmes.

Such is life with the ignorant and sensationalist media we now
have in this country.


'We now have'? My first realisation that the media wasn't to be
relied upon came sixty years ago, albeit in a fairly trivial way.
Since then, I've come across numerous times when articles have
been inaccurate through bias or incompetence.

A short story I read some years ago also portrayed the press as
being totally unreliable; I can't remember whether it was by Mark
Twain or Edgar Allan Poe.


I realised the press wasn't gospel, 35 years ago. My last year at
secondary school, two pratts set fire to a settee in the assembly
hall, and some of the corridors were smoke filled. In the local
paper, the following evening, they made out that my school was on
fire, and the teachers and pupils made a lucky escape. It was Mark
Twain that said, "Don't let the truth get in front of a good story".


It is not the fault of the press. The public don't want to hear about
the banal truth. They want a good story. So the press has to give
them good stories or pack up shop.

What scientist have to do is understand this. If they want to get a
message across to the public, they have to wrap it up in an
entertaining story. The BBQ summer was a good story, but it
backfired. So feeding the press is not an easy job :-(


It doesn't matter what you say to the press, or how you say it, they
will print what they want. forty-odd years ago, I read a 2-page article
in the Mail about severe ice conditions off East Greenland which
contained a lot of quotes from someone in the long-range forecast group
at the Met Office - Ratcliffe, I think - which were total rubbish. When
I got to work, he phoned me to ask if I'd seen the article and to state
that none of the quotes attributed to him bore any relationship to what
he'd said.

Unconnected to the Met Office but pertinent to the above event, I was
talking to someone about ten years ago who had been misquoted by the
press many times so, for the next interview, he took along a recorder
and asked the interviewers if they agreed to him recording the
interview; they had no objection. The article appeared with a load of
quotes that had nothing to do with what he said. He asked for a meeting
with them to discuss the matter. They went through the recording and,
for each quote, identified a word from one part of the recording and
another from somewhere else, etc. Their defence was - and they couldn't
see what was wrong with it - a version of the Eric Morecambe defence of,
'we printed all the right words but not necessarily in the right
order.'


Graham , you beat me to it. I was gong to mention Mr Morecambe and Mr
Preview (sic). When I worked in the MO press office I had a Sun
journalist who said that he had heard that we had said it was going to
be the coldest winter for 10 years. This was about the 3 December and in
the early 90s. I gave him the facts - which basically said 'no we
didn't'. The headline over the article the following day was: Met Office
say it's going to be the coldest winter for 20 years.

My experience was the good journalists did try to be truthful but that
the editors and owners wanted to sell newspapers so that all articles
had to be sexed up (now where have we heard that expression before?). My
tag for many moons was "If the newspapers got it right, it was probably
a misprint". Twenty years later I haven't changed my mind.