I write this blog shortly after a leisurely stroll through downtown New Orleans, on my way back from a meeting with a US oil and gas lawyer (and there are plenty round here, believe me, and many of them are still enjoying the BP litigation bonanza).

The Government's handling of the phantom tanker driver strike induced widespread public panic and generated a huge outcry, but an equally strong condemnation of further Government dithering, failed to attract the same publicity.

So it's official then. In an announcement from Vince Cable late last week, we heard that Birmingham has not emerged winner of the competition to host the Government's flagship Green Investment Bank (GIB), having been placed equal last out 5 finalists - jointly with Milton Keynes. And behind Peterborough. No offence, but honestly...!

I've recently found myself on first name terms with a couple of friendly folk at the call centre of my home energy supplier. And not because I'm tragically unable to turn off from the day job when I get home, or because I'm scraping the barrel to get the best out of my "friends and family" telecoms deal with BT.

Last week was an exciting week for energy lawyers. It saw the Court of Appeal reject DECC's appeal against an earlier High Court ruling, which decided that quick and drastic cuts to solar feed-in tariffs (FiTs) proposed in a now infamous consultation late last year were illegal.

Well that's the Christmas and New Year hysteria over for another 12 months.

I can imagine Scrooge revelling in the job of carbon accounting for the aftermath. Countless bin bags of present wrapping and decorations heading for landfill, not to mention forests of fake Christmas trees (apparently 10 times the carbon footprint of a dead tree); endless plates of leftover sprouts and Christmas pudding....

So, after all the pre-event hype (or in truth downplaying), COP17 in Durban finally closed its doors last week after 11 days hard negotiating on climate change and the actions the world must take to avert disaster.

I've not blogged on guitars yet in the context of climate change, but I'm going to have a go now.

Sunny Durban is the destination this week for the latest meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), when all things climate change related will be discussed. Expectations have been carefully set at rock bottom.

The press has been busy over the last week or so poring over the travel habits of our former defence secretary and his unofficial 'adviser'. Certainly, the two of them seem to have been busy racking up the air miles together.

As German Chancellor Angela Merkel currently works out how to steer the euro out of its current troubles, there are profound consequences for the UK in another policy area where Germany has a pivotal role, namely the energy markets. In March of this year, Merkel announced her monumental political U-turn over the future of the country's nuclear power programme.