Short thoughts

Just in case anyone out there is unaware that the UK is currently in the midst of some quite cold weather, here's proof that even way down south in the -comparably-tropical-to-here- parts of the country that not all is as it should be.
Yesterday the RSPCA was called on to free a swan that had somehow managed to get its feet frozen to a driveway in London, a cow which had fallen over in Leighton Buzzard, and a horse trapped in 4 feet of frozen water in Lincolnshire. Oh, and 200 people have died in a landslide in Colombia, but that's nowhere near as newsworthy as a few cold animals, obviously.

"Where's Colombia?"

The world's 2nd most stupid football club has sacked their manager. The manager that got them back into top flight football on a shoestring budget. The manager that currently has them sitting reasonably comfortably around the middle of the premiership, the manager  that the players came out and pledged their support to. It's fine sacking a manager if the owner wants to, that's his choice. The unsavoury thing here is that the clearly held off giving Hughton a new contract to save themselves a few quid in severance payments. Classy as ever.

A pair of typical geordies

Now, not normally much occurring on Radio 4 -or any radio channel for that matter- but when a man with the startlingly appropriate name of James Naughtie makes an on-air gaffe concerning the Culture Secretary -a man called Jeremy Hunt, well, that get's my attention.

"Jeremy what?"

Press "play" http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/audio/2010/dec/06/james-naughtie-jeremy-hunt-radio-4