And still Extinction Rebellion receives broadly sympathetic and front-page headline news from the BBC:

"Extinction Rebellion: Climate protesters 'making a difference'"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48003955A teenage climate change activist has told Extinction Rebellion protesters in central London they are "making a difference".

Greta Thunberg, 16, was greeted with loud cheers and chants of "we love you" as she took to the stage in front of thousands at the rally in Marble Arch.

Earlier, one of the group's members said the protests would be "paused".

But another said they planned "a week of activities" including a bid to prevent MPs from entering Parliament.

Ms Thunberg, a Swedish teenager who is credited with inspiring an international movement to fight climate change, told the crowd "humanity is standing at a crossroads" and that protesters "will never stop fighting for this planet".

"We are now facing an existential crisis," she added.

"The climate crisis, the ecological crisis they have been ignored for decades and for way to long the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything at all.

"But we will make sure they will not get away with it any longer."

[Much, much further down the article come criticisms of the protestors from Cressida Dick and Sadiq Khan].

At the moment, I'm prepared to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt over its coverage of the Sri Lankan atrocities. The news-page headline is now accurate, and the coverage is extensive, as it should be. We'll see if they keep it going for a week or more as they did over the NZ atrocity.

Meanwhile, however, headline news:

"Record Easter temperatures in three nations of the UK"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48004374

"Three of the UK's nations have recorded their highest ever Easter Sunday temperatures, the Met Office has said.

Scotland's peak was 23.4C (74F), in Edinburgh, while in Wales the hotspot was Hawarden Airport in Flintshire, which reached 23.2C.

Northern Ireland beat a 95-year-old record when the mercury hit 21C at Helen's Bay near Bangor.

England's highest temperature so far has been 25C - in Wisley, Surrey - just shy of the record of 25.3C."

Given that Easter Sunday is on a completely different date every year, but is very late this year (the internet tells me it can be any date between 22nd March and 25th April) it shouldn't really be surprising that temperatures this year are higher than usual on an Easter Sunday. I also note that the new Welsh "record" was at an airport, which surely makes it a rather dubious record? And it isn't the record in England.

What I would like to know (can anyone tell me?) is whether today's temperatures have set a record for 21st April or for April generally? If neither, then the "Easter Sunday record temperatures" claim would start to look a bit limp.

Supertroll, stewgreen, golf charlie, Tiny CO2 et al, re Notre Dame and les gilets jaunes. Perhaps I posted in too much haste to make my sentiment clear, but what I wanted to say has been taken otherwise than I intended. I do not criticise billionaires for choosing to spend their own money as they wish, and I do not criticise them for choosing to spend some of it on restoring the Notre Dame. Quite the contrary, actually - every Euro and cent of rich peoples' money voluntarily reduces the bill that might otherwise end up at the French taxpayers' door.

I read the gilets jaunes comments as being critical of the French government's pledge to spend money on Notre Dame, having previously imposed austerity on the French poor while cutting taxes for the rich. My criticism, as I understand theirs to be (or as I may have misunderstood theirs to be) was of politicians who claim there is no money for things that other people consider to be worthwhile, but who can always find money to virtue signal or for their own pet projects. Hence my reference to HS2 - a bottomless pit of expenditure to be paid by the taxpayer, but which, so far as I can see, barely a taxpayer supports; it's (yet) another example of the Westminster bubble.

An enjoyable bit of satirical writing about the XR events in London.

Meeting of minds?.....
I read, in the Sunday Times, that Greta is to meet with Govee.
Even a Beauty and the Beast analogy fails.