EnviroSpin Watch

We're back, After Henry, and with 'Home Planet' to bootee.....

For the Stott family, the world has changed with the successful birth of our first grandson on the morning of the 27th December (Year 0 or 1AH). We are very proud of our lovely elder daughter, of her ever-supportive husband, and, of course, of lively Aunt E, but above all of tiny Henry! He is just splendid and a joy to all. But I must say that having a baby by proxy is jolly exhausting. So my return to blogging is an act of recuperation from my labours (typical male self-centred response).

And what can I offer you in recompense for my untoward absence? Well, I hope something really interesting, namely the new Series of the critical environmental programme, 'Home Planet', on BBC Radio 4, which will run for 14 Tuesdays from today. If you are in the UK, it is broadcast every Tuesday afternoon at 15.02 GMT on BBC Radio 4; if you are outside the UK, you may still listen to it, online, via the BBC 'Home Planet' Web Page: (a) on the day in question, choose the 'Listen Live' button; or, (b) for one week after the first broadcast, choose the 'Listen Again' button; or, (c) after one whole week, select the relevant date under 'Previous Programmes'.

This week's topics include coppicing-for-energy, pink-footed geese and hydro-electric power in Iceland, slug slime, and cooling towers - with poor old Stotty attempting to slither through the chemistry of slug mucus! A sticky topic. So enjoy!

And, finally, it is good to be able to record that, just before Christmas, the BBC at last reported the vindication of Dr. Bjorn Lomborg ('Lomborg celebrates ministry ruling', BBC Science/Nature News Online, December 22). It remains, by contrast, a disgrace that this still does not appear, to my knowledge (so sincere apologies, if it has), to have been reported by The Guardian. I do hope that I am wrong in this, and that I have missed the report in the ever-so-busy Christmas period. If not, I think it is nearly worth a letter to the Press Complaints Commission.

Philip, recuperating from childbirth.