It’s raining again today. My small grandson was rather disappointed that I wouldn’t agree to put our raincoats on and head for the sandy park! Making sandcastles in the rain is not really my idea of fun. So we found indoor activities instead.
Now that sun has disappeared again for a while I have been reading about problems with sunburn, in particular “acute, unimaginable, itching that occurs in short, intense waves … 2-3 days after a reasonably mild (non-blistering) sun burn” also known as “hell’s itch”.
I try to avoid getting burnt these days, having had occasions in the past when I’ve overdone it and been able to feel the heat radiating from my arms when I hold my hand a good few inches away. I have never experienced “hell’s itch”, fortunately, although I did succomb to heatstroke back in the heatwave of 1976: proper heatstroke where I keeled over into a faint! We were on a campsite with little shade in Brittany. Oddly, my ankles swelled up so that walking was painful but I was still able to drive, so we packed up and moved on in search of a shadier place to camp.
Reading the article, I learnt some new IT vocabulary. The suffering writer sought information about remedies through a “subreddit” - a what? So I googled it.
“WHAT DOES SUBREDDIT MEAN?
A subreddit is a specific online community, and the posts associated with it, on the social media website Reddit. Subreddits are dedicated to a particular topic that people write about, and they’re denoted by /r/, followed by the subreddit’s name, e.g., /r/gaming.”
And:
“WHERE DOES SUBREDDIT COME FROM?
Launched in 2005, Reddit (a play on the phrase I read it on the internet) is a massively popular hub for online discussion on seemingly endless topics. The subreddit is the heart of what makes Reddit…well, Reddit. Sub- is a prefix meaning “under,” so we can imagine subreddits as communities that fall under that broader Reddit umbrella.”
I suppose almost everyone else knew that already but I have had little need to do major research in the last decade and things have moved on without me.
Meanwhile, the climate crisis goes on and some news media are reporting that PM hopeful Liz Truss spent £500,000 of taxpayers money in three months using private government jets. Ms Truss spent £300,000 on private jets during a trip to Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia between the 6th and 11th November 2021. And she spent another £96,000 on a private jet to Saudi Arabia in October, and a further £105,000 flying to the Baltics and Sweden in December. A Truss campaign source defended her use of the official jet this weekend, arguing the on-board wifi and privacy allowed her to “work more and harder.”
Hmmm! It doesn’t bode well for meeting net zero targets.
Of course, she’s not alone in jetting around. I’me sure I read recently, about Mr Johnson flying his family back from Cornwall to London in a government jet, but maybe I was wrong; maybe it was just an ordinary commercial plane. And some of the jetters can’t even use the excuse of working “more and harder”.
The super-rich don’t worry about the climate crisis!
The rest of us may find our flights cancelled at fairly short notice, not because of the climate crisis but for other travel-related problems. Our son had to rearrange his travel plans when Easyjet informed him his flights had been cancelled. Fortunately he was able to rebook with RyanAir and is zooming off to Galicia today.
Many people seem to have decided to travel by car and ferry instead of flying but they are having problems, according to this report. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/22/dover-port-declares-critical-incident-travellers-four-hour-queues-french-border-control
One man interviewed on the radio said he has been queueing for 7 hours. He sounded remarkably cheerful, all things considered. I am a little amused, but still sympathetic, as I read that the French are making life difficult for us. You would almost think that France caused Brexit!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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