Guardian moderates

That's odd - when I look at Comment is Free threads I get a message above the comment box saying that "This comment will be held for moderation". Does everyone get this or am I on some sort of a blacklist? If the latter, I'm rather bemused as I can't think of anything I've said that would upset the Graun. I don't even post there very often.

Perhaps the Domestic Extremism Team have told them that I'm persona non grata?

Hope you all had a nice Christmas

I hope everyone had a nice break - it snowed here so I got rather distracted from the blogging. Higher priorities like sledging and digging the car our took precedence. So my apologies for my failure to sign off at the end of term, and thanks for all the good wishes.

The antidote to RealClimate

Climatologists Hans von Storch and Eduardo Zorita have started a new blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, gentlemen.

Bookselling

With America at Thanksgiving this weekend the Climategate pace has slowed slightly, allowing me to take stock of where I am. Blog traffic has been unbelievable, and it's been fascinating to see the relative power of old-new-media (like Instapundit; my first Instalanche!) and the new-old-media sites like the newspaper blogs. Thanks to everyone for the links.

I've also had some interest from big media. BBC radio is coming to see me next week (gulp) and there is the possibility of some independent radio too. I have precisely zero interest in becoming famous, so this is going to be bit of a trial to me, but I guess it's a cross I will have to bear.

All that traffic did good things for the book, which at one point last weekend was inside the top 1000 on Amazon UK, which I think must be pretty good seeing you can't actually buy it yet. I've finished writing a new chapter on Climategate, which adds a lot of corroborating evidence to the case I build in the rest of the book. It's amazing how little contradiction there was between what I'd written before and what was revealed last week. The new material all went off to the publisher on Friday, so with a bit of luck we can get it finalised and off to the printer next week.

Another upshot of the attention is that I have managed to get a foot in the door at an Australian publisher. It's early doors yet, but it's encouraging just to make contact, as anyone who has ever tried to get a book published knows. I still need to find someone in the US, which is obviously likely to be a big market for me. So if anyone out there knows someone in a US publisher who would like to buy up the rights to a very readable and very topical title on global warming scandals, do please put me in touch. Likewise I'm happy to speak to people about all the other rights - translation rights, TV and so on. Don't be shy.

Half-term

It's school holidays time and I'll be away for the next week, which means I'll miss all the fun. Be good while I'm away.

Blogging break

I am going to take a break from blogging, perhaps for as much as a month, while I concentrate on some other things. I may still make the occasional posting, but it's likely to be quiet around here for a while.

Tagged

Carl Gardner has tagged me for one of those round robin meme thingies. Apparently I have to tell everyone about my mobile phone and also to name one of my heroes.

There's a bit of a problem with the first bit in that I don't actually have a mobile phone, although I occasionally borrow the missus' one - an antique Nokia with a negative street cred score. I did own one once, when my job at the time required it, but I hated it with a vengeance. I don't want to be contactable at any time. (Also, what is it about a mobile which makes the battery warning bleeper go off only in the middle of the night?)

A hero - that's a bit tricky too, not being given to hero-worship. People who have done good things in difficult circumstances flit in and out of my attention all the time. At the moment it's John Adams. He'll do.

Nagging thought

That last post - I have this nagging concern that it's not actually original and that I ripped the idea off someone else. If I did, I apologise. It's a good idea though.

Bishop Hill for mobile devices

I've set up Bishop Hill for mobile devices using MoFuse. Not having one of the aforementioned mobile devices, I have no idea if this has worked or not. Perhaps someone can tell me. The URL is: http://bishophill.mofuse.mobi/

No post

Been on my sickbed since the end of last week. Still struggling now. Viruses. Yeuch.

Posting will be non-existent.

Comments tracking

What do people use to track the comments they leave on other sites? Since the much-lamented demise of co.mments I haven't been able to find anything that has the same combination of ease of use and reliability.

There must be something out there.

Re-redesign

Reaction to the redesign was, ahem, not universally favourable. That's OK though, it's been a good learning experience. Rather than throw my hands up in disgust, I've put through a number of tweaks to the template to address some of the criticisms. These seem to be sending me back towards the place I first started, but that's OK too.

Let's see how it goes. I can always pull the plug and go back to the old template.

Redesign

A bit of a redesign has happened. Not too radical I hope?

Let me know what you think.

Jon Snow doesn't get blogs

Jon Snow is a turned over the years from being the enfant terrible of television news into something of a dinosaur, espousing rigidly 1960s left-wing views from his hotseat on the evening news. He's been there for so long it must be second nature to him now. Unfortunately the old dog is having to learn some new tricks, and the powers that be at C4 have set him to blogging.

Oh dear.

A week back our Jon took time out from his globetrotting trip to a literary festival in Columbia (no friend of the planet our Jon - do what you're told, not what I do) and wrote an article about tax havens. As they tend to do, the commenters went off on a path of their own devising and started a heated discussion on how much money you needed to open an offshore account.

Then today, Jon has a post up as follows:

Many of you who complained about my blog did what so many do: suggest I said things that hadn’t. That’s the beauty of blogging: the blog is there for all to see, and I did not say you need £100k to get started in the Isle of Man.

Jon, they were just talking amongst themselves. It's not about you, this blogging thing, it's about us.

Scepticism goes respectable

There has been some speculation that the tide of opinion on global warming is turning. Here's one example: Even left now laughing at global warming.

And I've just come across another: Nature Climate Feedback, who I've roundly criticised in the past for failing to link to Climate Audit have quietly rearranged their blogroll, adding a link to McIntyre in the process. One really does wonder what was going through their heads when they did this - did they think that they were starting to look foolish by now acknowledging CA, especially now that McIntyre has another paper in press? Or is this the start of a rehabilitation of the sceptical community ahead of a general recognition that the whole AGW thing has been oversold.

Either way, the recognition is well-deserved, if a little tardy.