The Nepal and Tibet flood is a warning: melting snow and ice will bring more disasters around the world | Bill McGuire

One of the tragic consequences of global warming. Scientists will tell us whether receding glaciers are to blame for last Wednesday’s ice shelf collapse that triggered a catastrophic flood, cascading down more than 3,000 meters from the Chinese border into Nepal.

Apparently a dedicated mud room will make you less stressed. But I have a very different approach I was excited to learn that the latest interiors essential, according to the Washington Post, is a “dirty zone”. I’m ahead of the curve – I’ve already got a dirty zone by each main door (and also one directly outside the back door, where, rudely, a mystery animal has defecated). The fridge drawers are dirty zones thanks to the windfall apples I thought I would cook, but predictably left to liquefy. There’s a dirty zone next to the washing machine and a mildewy one inside it. There’s the festering compost bin I’m too chicken to tackle post-heatwave, plus the cupboard under the stairs, which we don’t talk about. Good luck finding a clean zone, basically. Does this make me kinda chic? Unfortunately not: the Post is actually preaching the benefits of confining the sordid ephemera of life to carefully delineated and hidden areas: storage benches, monogrammed totes or even a “mud room” (for coats, shoes, skis, lacrosse sticks and dog-washing sinks – I think posh Britons call it a boot room). A 2021 study in the Netherlands found that participants who did chores in chaotic environments had higher levels of the stress marker salivary alpha-amylase. I always wonder what’s brewing in my mouth as I fall over piles of filthy shoes yet again while running to answer the door...

Canyons, small streams and dry creek beds in the West can be deceptively dangerous, trapping hikers when rainfall upstream causes rapidly rising water.