The thing about having anytime off in the winter, is you quickly forget just how dark it is when you leave the house in the morning. of-course it’s not really* you just forget.

*Technically it is darker (by one minute on th 3rd Jan compared to the 24th Dec), that’s because even though the 21st Dec was the shortest day, the sun continues to come up later each day until 5th January, it’s the nights that get longer first. I have thought about this for all of around 30seconds I my rudimentary understanding of the seasons means i can’t tell you why it happens like this - the BBC claim it’s because the earth doesn’t go round the sun in a circle.

Your first bit of randomness for the year.

getting sucked into all the hype (or indeed the google search results) it would be easy to think that Liverpool is the European capital of culture for 2008 - but in fact there are two.

There used to be only one capital each year but with the enlargement of the European Union, they decided to have two a year, makes a bit of a mockery of the term capital (especially since pre 1999 it was the European City of Culture). anyway 2008 is the second such year of two capitals so lets not forget the Stravander Region in Norway which is also European Capital of Culture 2008.