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    Last year was the second wettest in the UK on record. Met Office figures show the past 12 months’ rainfall was 6.6mm less than in 2000, the wettest year recorded. Here is & the latest report

    June: hardy royalists huddle under umbrellas near Tower Bridge ahead of the Thames Diamond Jubilee pageant Photograph: Tal Cohen/EPA

    July: festival-goers endure the rain at the main stage during the T In The Park Festival at Balado in Kinross Photograph: Ross Gilmore/Redferns via Getty Images

    November: flood-damaged stock in a newsagents in Braunton, Devon Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

    (Source: )

  3. 2012: the last news quiz of the year (we promise!)

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    The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, notably used by the Maya, came to the end of a “great cycle” of 13 b’ak’tuns on 21 December 2012 - leading some to predict the final annihilation to which humanity has given many terrifying names (Armageddon, Ragnarok, Doomsday, Qiyamah) for the busy pre-Christmas shopping period. How did the world end for you? Chichen Itza, Mayan pyramid

    1. Ever since 21 December I’ve just been dust and vapour! How can I answer that?
    2. Not at all. Now on with the quiz!
    3. Sorry, the wifi here on this French mountain that turned out to be an alien spacecraft and is now spinning me to safety through outer space is terrible. I can’t load the page

    Take the full news quiz here.

  6. Photo

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    guardiancomment: Today, we want to defend Tumblr, after it was cowardly hacked yesterday. Bim Adewunmi: You can hack it, you can bash it, but Tumblr’s still got it Like any internet community, it is not without its flaws. Here, the hackers’ comments came uncomfortably close to a lot of Tumblr users’ excesses. It is sometimes a deeply silly place, keen on self-congratulation. It is also largely decadent, and because it is made of millions of fallible human beings, it’s not always terribly original or profound. But that does not mean it does not have the capacity to be those things, and it often is. Tumblr is where I go to laugh, but it also a fantastic place to learn: this is where I first read about Trayvon Martin, for example. It often hosts some of the most eloquent and nuanced conversations about society, from gender to race to equality and social justice. It is a community that gives and shares and supports its own – only last night, I witnessed people organise a whip-round for a fellow Tumblr user who needed to get out of an abusive situation fast. It can be a brilliant place, because it is a lot more than the sum of is parts: you get out of it what you put in. Not many sites can give you all of that and a gif of Chris Evans punching a bag in slo-mo. And for that reason, I’ll remain onboard. No contest. Read the rest here Great piece on Cif right now…

    guardiancomment:

    Today, we want to defend Tumblr, after it was cowardly hacked yesterday.

    Bim Adewunmi: You can hack it, you can bash it, but Tumblr’s still got it

    Like any internet community, it is not without its flaws. Here, the hackers’ comments came uncomfortably close to a lot of Tumblr users’ excesses. It is sometimes a deeply silly place, keen on self-congratulation. It is also largely decadent, and because it is made of millions of fallible human beings, it’s not always terribly original or profound. But that does not mean it does not have the capacity to be those things, and it often is.

    Tumblr is where I go to laugh, but it also a fantastic place to learn: this is where I first read about Trayvon Martin, for example. It often hosts some of the most eloquent and nuanced conversations about society, from gender to race to equality and social justice. It is a community that gives and shares and supports its own – only last night, I witnessed people organise a whip-round for a fellow Tumblr user who needed to get out of an abusive situation fast.

    It can be a brilliant place, because it is a lot more than the sum of is parts: you get out of it what you put in. Not many sites can give you all of that and a gif of Chris Evans punching a bag in slo-mo. And for that reason, I’ll remain onboard. No contest.

    Read the rest here

    Great piece on Cif right now…

  9. Gallery

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    During the last two presidential debates, Republican challenger Mitt Romney unleashed internet obsessions around his “love of Big Bird” and “his binders full of women.” However, Monday night, it was Barack Obama who delivered the evening’s only meme-worthy line.

    The president responded to Romney’s claim that the US navy is now smaller than at any other time since 1917 with his first real zinger of the debate season:

    You mentioned the navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

    (Source: )

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