Alan Kendall, some of us country bumpkins sleep a lot better because frogs and toads croak on the roads.

Reported in this week's Waitrose Weekend: Froglife estimate "20 tons of toads are killed on our roads each year". Just thought all you Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Morrison types might like to know this.

SandyS

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Entropic man,
The fact it has a name and the mechanism seems well known means that this is just another case of weather. As a result of modern technology we're better at detecting and forecasting things like this.

I suppose that car washes across much of Europe will be busy with people washing off Saharan dust in the next few days. I also expect that later there may be algae blooms in the Mediterranean as a result of dust landing in the water.

All attributable to man burning fossil fuels?

European readers, especially in Italy and the east.

Heads up. There is a haboob coming your way.

stewgreen, Quality Control in Climate Science set new standards with Mann's Hockey Stick, that no climate scientist has ever dared to exceed since.

Pcar
Interesting thing drinking water. In my youth in summer I used to work as Grouse Beater or Ponyman for Deer Stalking on the estate where we lived. Early in my career one of the old Gamekeepers said, "Never drink on the hill without eating, you'll be thirsty all day if you do". I followed this advice on days which were often 10+ hours long and involved walking 15+ miles and climbing (and descending) two or three thousand feet. It seemed to work as I didn't seem to be as thirsty as those who drank their supplies by lunch time. It's surprisingly difficult to get decent water up some Perthshire mountains. Once I got home I had to drink several litres of water/tea. Whether it did me any harm I can't really say, but I don't recall any headaches.

The man who gave me the advice only carried a whisky half bottle, the hip flask style, filled with cold tea (no milk) which he rarely finished.

Life is full of little coincidences. During the chat about camouflage the other day the subject SAS Land Rovers desert colours came up. At a quiz last night "What do the SAS call their desert Land Rovers?" was one of the questions, that and guessing Paper Lace, I happen to know Paper Lace came from Nottingham, got to into the charts with Nottingham Forest in 1978 enabled us to win the quiz.

Thanks everyone.

Pcar, during Ramadan in hot countries, people tend to stay indoors, and out of the heat, during the day.

Many construction workers in the oil rich Arab States are foreigners, and not Muslims.