If a boiling pot of water has a bag of frozen peas dropped into it, it may take several minutes for all of the peas to thaw. Half a bag of frozen peas will take less than half the time, and a handful may only take seconds. The rate of thaw becomes exponentially faster according to the decreasing size of the frozen mass itself.

The results in Greenland do not involve boiling point temperatures but the thawing process is the same: over the last 200 years the ice sheet has decreased in mass due to a natural thawing process so that an increasingly faster thaw would be expected, over time, even if the temperature had remained exactly the same.

The assertion that the thaw rate is proof of "climate change" is facile and ignores other, more complex, components of the phenomena which would contradict that conclusion.

The Christmas decorations are up. The tree is trimmed. Shopping centres are crammed with people buying gifts for loved ones. What a happy time of the year this is! Or is it?

If you happen to be a factory farmed turkey it is one of the unhappiest times of the year. Barely able to move in their tightly packed sheds, the millions of turkeys destined for Christmas dinner are finding that, with every passing day, their suffering intensifies. As the ammonia in the air increases so does the burning in their eyes and lungs. And lying on the ammonia laden faecal matter is increasingly burning their feet, legs and breasts. Because of the abnormal way they are bred, farmed turkeys also suffer from swollen joints, crippled legs, degeneration of the hip joints and crippled feet. Their deaths will be violent, terrifying and agonizing.

Why do so many of us fail to see the incongruity of celebrating the birth of the “Prince of Peace” by subjecting these gentle and peaceful animals to this enormous suffering?

The horse racing stables with hundreds of horses in work and trained in name by one trainer have made the balance and fairness in the industry warped. There should be a maximum number of horses that one trainer can have in work, perhaps 50 (and 50 spelling or in pre-training.)

The smaller stables need to able to compete and attract owners and have a spread in the industry. There are many outstanding trainers that get very limited owner support because of the dominance of the big stables.

Creating a restriction on how many horses one trainer can train at a time would cause a spread of horses to more trainers and the result would help the industry. Racing needs the battlers and the battlers need to be supported and the industry correct the lack of balance.