Flood - or "Bad Meteorology"

A storm surge associated with a low pressure system hits the north of Scotland, runs down the east coast and hits London.
First things first. It's a drama, it needs a bad guy and in this case it's the Met Office, shown as a bunch of model following incompetents. The only people aware of the danger are private companies, and if you're not attached to the office, you'd probably enjoy it.
Now, a couple of things. The facts as stated in the first sentence are true, large storm surges happen and are one of the things that we monitor VERY closely. The Ops centre (not shown accurately) do have lots of models but they also have satellites and actual reports to look at. They've also got us. All of the outstations would be watching this and all of us would be working on it separately, if we thought the Ops guys were wrong we'd sodding well tell them! The office would issue warnings for what might happen, as has been shown recently - and like I said, east coast surges are a sore point. We're often criticised that we issue too many warnings, but it's better to be warned.
Having said that, sometimes things do go wrong and sometimes forecasts go wrong, but on that scale? For us to miss the possibility by that much is a bit much.
This is the thing I'm not liking about the program - we're shown in a pretty shit light. Apart form that, it's actually not too bad. They point out the 1953 floods when exactly this happened, it was the highest peacetime loss of life in Britain for a very long time.
People don't like to think about storm surges, they're scary, but they are real. You get (roughly speaking) one metre of surge for every 10 mB drop and about one metre of wind wave for every 10 knots of wind, so to get the 50 odd foot you'd need a central low pressure of about 900 mB and winds of about 80 kt. Possible. In fact, statistically, likely - given a long enough time frame. But not this week. In fact we've had two big storms that threatened to do just this within the last two years, one on the west coast and one on the east. In one case the surge hit at low tide and for the other the pressure wasn't as low as could be and went further off shore, allowing the flood defences to work.
It's just how they show the Office that sticks in my craw. Trust me, if I'd seen a storm like that heading for the coast I'd be looking at it HARD. We'd be one of the first groups hit so we'd be signing the clarion call at the top of our voices!
By the way, as with pretty much all British disaster films, they get COBRA wrong. It is the emergency group but it actually refers to Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. It's a room they use; or at least was originally. I may put in more as the film progresses, depends on how annoyed I am.

On communication.

Two points mainly, it's been one of those weeks.
This week there's been a few extra aircraft up here, various exercises and the like. Most of them were up for Joint Warrior including the French Air Force and the French Navy. Odd thing is that we're not supposed to talk about them until they're finished and everyone's gone home but within six hours of the first plane landing the pictures were up on various aircraft spotting websites. Another exercise was also on, and as the details haven't been put in the public sector yet I can't say much but this one was a mostly British affair with one or two notable visitors. For this one we were asked to provide on site met in the form of a briefing, which is something that I enjoy but haven't really done much of recently. Hopefully we'll be doing more of them soon.
Even given the fact that we work pretty closely with the air force I was somewhat put out that after I'd done my little bit and was sitting through the rest of the brief (bloody interesting stuff) I realised that if I'd known more about what they were doing I could have REALLY focused on what they needed.
The whole reason that we're cleared and out in theatre with the guys is that we can give specific information rather than just general forecasts for wide areas; I've begun now to understand more how better knowledge of the way they work will allow me to do my job more efficiently and just generally better. It's not that I think I gave a bad brief, but if I'd done another one at the end of the mass brief I would have delivered a very different one. Knowing what they were planning, not just the general area they were working in, knowing the profiles they'd be likely to fly and the things that they'd be doing, it all gives me a better idea what they want and what they need to know. The way I did it I gave information that they didn't need and focused on things that were frankly irrelevant. I'm going to try and get some feedback about it and see if, in future, we can get just five or ten minutes heads-up with Ops to, yeah, focus more.

The other bit of communications I've had is the reason this is being typed on a Windows machine rather than a Mac. My Mac has died. Gets to the boot screen and just freezes. Tried clearing the PRAM and resetting to factory settings, nothing. Ran a couple of machine checks (including one from a command line - I'm sure Unix is great but I don't have the skills to do more than a basic check) and when running the check from the install disk the system couldn't find the hard drive. Now I'm a bit of a n00b when it comes to sys stuff but I know that not being able to locate the hard drive is a problem. Most of the stuff was backed up a few weeks back so there's a few pictures I'd be pissed off loosing but the big stuff is on the spare drive so re-installing shouldn't ruin my life. The machine is less than a year old so it's still under warranty; hence I started to dig out the documents for it. Found everything (including the bank statement) except the receipt. Bugger. I was sure I'd bought it from PC World (quiet at the back there!) so yesterday I headed over to Inverness to pop in. I was also planning to see Iron Man (brilliant!) so I was going anyway, which was good because when I got there I realised I'd actually bought it at Currys. We've got a Currys here, so I might not have had to drive 45 miles to the one there. As it was I got a copy of the receipt and the phone number for customer support. That's right, they don't handle Apple repairs in store, it's done through a phone contact. Fortunately a 24/7 number so a called a couple of times today as I'd got back a bit late last night. Twice I got the message "Due to circumstances outside of our control we are experiencing a high call volume and cannot take your call. Sorry." Click, buzz. Automatic cut off.
Waited until about 2200, called again, got told, "sorry, we don't do Apple on this number, here's their customer service number, they don't work weekends." I'll try again on Monday but I'm betting they don't work bank holidays either so it'll be Tuesday and I'm just hoping that they won't object to the fact that I didn't buy the care package - they shouldn't, it's within it's first year so still under warranty. We'll have to see.
When wandering through the store, all I could think of was "Nerd Herd! Nerd Herd!" Liking Chuck and Reaper.

A motorbike and comedy post

Warning! Bad language, bad taste and good humour ahead!

There's been a few things this week that have made me laugh. One of the best was when I was chatting to a mate online and she mentioned that there was a "Mock the Week" marathon on Dave (for non-UK guys, that's a TV channel). I was in work the next night and sure enough, there was another set of episodes on. If you don't know it, Mock the Week is an improv show, and theoretically there's about 4 or 5 rounds of comedy challenges for the various standups such as one comic does a version of a speech (Dubya addressing Congress, the Prince of Wales talking to his mother) and another translates what's actually meant, or various topics are given and they compete for quick-fire laughs and so on. One of the episodes, I swear they had three rounds, and one of them had just one topic that was covered for about 15 minutes. Like all shows of the type it can date quickly but some of the rest of it is still painfully relevant. I think I managed to give myself a decent stomach work-out with the amount I was laughing.
From youtube, here's a few, including an outtake. The BBC have posted a load but can't embed them.

These are from the final rounds, "scenes you'd never see..."

Did they base the Ood on Dr John Zoidberg?


*eta* as in the aliens from Saturday's Dr Who (and the Satan Pit) and Planet Express' resident doctor from Futurama.
Or maybe they're both based on Cthulhu... O R’lyeh? Yeah they might be.

I'll stop now.

Convergence

A lager advert on the TV has Violent Femmes as a sound-track, which made me pop onto iTunes and grab it, as it made me think about Grosse Point Blank, one of my 20 favourite films (come on! "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork, how have you been?" Lines don't get much better). Riding back from Inverness today and the same tune came on my iPod, I think "must watch that film again soon" and lo and behold, right now on UKTV Gold, it's Grosse Point Blank.
*edit to add* just seen one of my favourite scenes on film. As a single guy I have a certain image to maintain as a climbing, boarding, kayaking, martial arts blokey bloke but the bit in the film with Robbie (at the reunion with Under Pressure in the background), it's just fantastic. If you've seen the film you'll know it. Just gets to me, you know. ;D */edit*
Score!
Tis a good day.

Also managed to get a few pictures of Scotland today as well, this is one of the better ones.

You know, I'm really lucky to live up here. I was faced with the dilemma of do I go snow-boarding, to the cinema, walking on the beach or walking on a snow covered mountain on my day off. Woosed out, went to the cinema, saw 21, not bad. Grosse Point Blank's better though. Mountains later, wine now.

Tiny bit tipsy

Watching Bones, the new season on Sky, and a couple of things strike me, aside from the fact I've had a very nice bottle of wine (thank you Tesco) and a bit of a Martini-type drink (I'm using more vermouth than is standard). The series has about 12 producers/executive/assistant producers, two of them are the main characters and one is Kathy Reichs, upon whose books and life the series is modelled, but even so, 12! That's a bit over the top!
The reason I've had a drink or two on a week night is that I've just finish a shift pattern from hell. From Sunday night until 8 o'clock this morning I've been on a nominal 12 on 12 off pattern, except the two shift where I had to do 14 or 15 hours when the next guy couldn't get in on time. Not his fault, illness and planned activities related. Now I'm relaxing and enjoying the new season. My next comment may be a bit controversial, but I prefer the series to the books, although I've only read the first book, maybe the later ones are better, I'll have to find out.
I'm rambling, but I'm happy.
BTW, weekend looks a bit grotty (just showers in the south) and Monday could see a return to wintry showers as far south as Birmingham, but don't tell anyone I told you so!

And I've just found out that Martini's aren't improved by using Rossi. Although American Dad is always good.

But more importantly I've just realised that I'm going to miss out on my niece's life. I'm her uncle and I'm not going to be there. I know her mum and dad will be there for anything she needs but I think an uncle near-by, or at least reachable, is important. When Ellen was born Matt seemed a bit hesitant about the fact I wouldn't be a god-parent, but as I said at the time, I'm faimily, and I believe that god-parents shouldn't be family; but we should be available for the child. So when she gets older, I'm going to have to have to make sure she's got my number, just in case something comes up that she's not happy talking to her mum and dad about.
Having said that, she's three now, so I've got a bit of time, I hope....