Apparently it is possible to blow up a plate and set it on fire. I discovered this by leaving one on the hob, and accidentally turning the hob to full heat. Not something to try to replicate: it seems plates give off an awful lot of smoke. Anyway, I blame it on my kettle, which burnt out earlier in the day, raising my stress levels. So today shall be spent trying to find a new kettle, as well as all the essaying and reading I have to be getting on with. And yes, I know this post has been the most waffling and pointless one ever, but this is a personal blog.

Periodically I like to have a good look through my Google Analytics reports to see if anyone actually reads my blogs. Well, when I say “periodically”, I really mean every day. Anyway, I was looking back through the archives for this blog, and saw this post on visitor statistics from 2007, in which I’d copied over a map from Hitwise to show where people were coming to my site from.

Well, that got me curious, so I had a look at the equivalent map for the blog since I switched to using Google Analytics:

I’m certainly reassured that people are bothering to read the stuff I write here. The stats for The Thursday Briefing are even better:

It sort of gives me motivation to carry on blogging.

There’s something enchanting about snow. This is of course a sentiment I’m sure many won’t share with me as they struggle to get to work, but for lucky students like me, who don’t have to traipse into lectures until late this afternoon, the sight of snow is heartwarming, if not actually warming (my bedroom was at about 10° centigrade when I woke this morning). I would hesitate to say that it is one of the few forms of weather that can bring the nation to a standstill, because really, this is Britain, anything can bring the country juddering to a halt. But snow is one of the few forms of weather that can achieve that, and also provide countless people with childlike joy at the white fluffy icing on everything. You don’t get that from flooding or gales.

And even if it doesn’t please everyone directly, at the very least it gives us a chance for a good proper British panic, followed by a nice sit down and a cup of tea.