Some of the oddness of the world! Or the country, anyway!

Headline: UK WEATHER. SUNSHINE AND SOARING TEMPERATURES TO RETURN IN TIME FOR THE WEEKEND

In the article:-

Britain’s glorious summer is set to make a return this weekend with temperatures soaring up to the mid-20s and sunshine expected throughout Saturday. Barbecues could be dusted off once more with London and the south east expected to enjoy a bright and warm Saturday, the Met Office has said.

A little further in the article:-

 “You can almost split the country into three bands on Tuesday,” said Ms Diamond. “In Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north of England, there will be occasional sunshine but mainly cloudy with showers. In Wales and the Midlands, it will be cloudy with just a scattering of rain and some breaks of sunshine. And in the south, it will be bright and warm with occasional cloud cover.”

So when they write UK, or Britain, or England, at least in weather forecasts, they really mean London and the South East!

To give the lie to the whole thing though, today in our bit of the Northwest, began grey and gloomy, after a night of intermittent rain showers - rain on the roof can’t half disturb your sleep - but by early afternoon had turned into a fine, sunny day. No complaints!

Meanwhile, here is something about a proposal to make it easier for the people who absolutely have to walk along the street using their mobile phones:-

 “If we are thinking about injury prevention and the dominant ‘safe system’ approach used within road safety, there is actually a strong case for redesigning infrastructure over relying on other methods of changing behaviour.” So says Shaun Helman, chief transportation scientist at the Transport Research Laboratory.

But what particular problem could he be addressing? Cyclists taking their lives in their hands every time they mount their bikes? Drivers who sit in the middle lane of motorways, steadfastly going no quicker or slower than 50mph, thereby causing other drivers to tear their hair out?

No - Mr Helman is addressing those zombies who are glued to their mobile phones, to the discomfiture of anyone else within 15ft. You know the sort - there they go, faces glued to their little screens, oblivious to anyone who might actually want to be getting somewhere, except Mr Numpty has just received a vital message and must stop in his tracks, causing an inevitable collision and dudgeon from Mr Numpty that you have tail-ended him.

Yet far from taking a well-justified cudgel to the back of Mr Numpty’s head for his selfish behaviour, it seems there might be a nannyish solution, namely embedding strips of red lights on kerbs to tell mobile phone users to stop at junctions or special lanes on pavements marked as “text walking lanes”.

Has the world really come to this, that pedestrians with a seriously bad phone habit have to be cosseted and mollycoddled? Far better to have a bloke with a loudhailer, at busy places, ready to bellow: “Oi, you, the selfish halfwit, watch where you are bloody well going. Do try acting like a human being and put that phone back in your pocket.”

Failing that, I shall insist on my democratic right to barge into these plonkers and cause maximum annoyance. You have been warned, Mr Numpty.”

The world is just a little bit crazy!