The Oxford and Cambridge boat race is due to take place this Sunday on the River Thames in London. Apparently it is usual for the winning crew to throw the cox into the river. This year they’ve been advised not to do so because the Thames is nastily polluted with raw sewage. Taking a dip in the River Thames is not good for the skin. The same applies to many other rivers around the country.
Here’s some information, courtesy of BBC news:
“Sewage spills into England's rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled last year.
According to the Environment Agency there were 3.6 million hours of spills compared to 1.75 million hours in 2022.
Water UK, the industry body for sewerage companies, said it was 'unacceptable' but the record levels were due to heavy rain.
Sewage spilling can be legal but environmentalists say it should only happen in exceptional weather.
And the Environment Agency said: "It is important to note that heavy rainfall does not affect water companies' responsibility to manage storm overflows in line with legal requirements."
I want to repeat one sentence:
“Sewage spilling can be legal but environmentalists say it should only happen in exceptional weather.”
The thing is we HAVE had some exceptional weather recently - lots of rain!So they should have been doing something equally “exceptional” to prevent things getting out of hand, it seems to me.
In any case, I wouldn’t advise wild swimming. Not in any of our rivers at the moment.
I’ve rabbited on about bears quite often recently (and about the idea of reintroducing other possibly fierce wild creatures into the countryside). Yesterday there was some rather frightening footage on the television news of a large bear running down a street, together with reports of people having been bitten or scratched and others cowering in their cars until the bear had gone. Granted, this was in Slovakia but we should all be aware that wild animals don’t know how to behave in cities. The clue is in the name: WILD animals. It sounds fiercer in other languages: animales salvajes, animaux sauvages!
Anyway, they’ve hunted and killed a bear close to the town of Liptovsky Mikulas in Slovakia. Unfortunately some people say this is the wrong bear - wrong gender, wrong size, just plain the wrong bear. It must be quite hard to be completely fair when dealing with bears accused of rampaging. I don’t suppose you get much chance to interrogate the suspects.
A less dangerous wild animal is the hedgehog, despite his prickles, which in any case are really a defence mechanism not a weapon. Every so often we are reminded that we should be careful with piles of leaves and such in the garden as there still could be a hedgehog snoozing in here, not yet having decided that spring has sprung. People like to rescue hedgehogs. We did it ourselves years and years ago: spotting one walking along the edge of a busy main road, we popped him into a handy box in the boot of the car and took him a more rural spot to set him free. Baby hedgehogs are especially appealing. Here’s a story about someone who rescued a very soggy-looking baby hedgehog, which turned out to be the pompom off someone’s wooly hat! Hmmm! Maybe a trip to the optician is called for!
More seriously, on the television news I heard assurances that there is no famine in Gaza. Goodness knows where the photos of emaciated children come from. Also, an Iraeli spokesperson on the BBC news said, “Over 70% of Gazans support the 7th October massacre. This supposedly justifies killing them. How many small children support massacres? I wonder!
But this article describes aid being prevented from getting into Gaza. And in the latest twist of fate, air-dropped aid is sometimes landing on the sea. People are drowning trying to get the aid packages from the water!
And here’s a bit of Michael Rosen:
'People are saying that something monstrous is going on,' said the King.
'They're wrong,' said the King's tutor.
'Should we just say what you just said, then?' said the King.
'Yes,' said the tutor, 'just say that they're wrong and that it's not monstrous.'
'Anything else?' said the King,
'Tell them that they are horrible, despicable people for saying that it's monstrous,' said the tutor.
'Got that,' said the King, 'but what if it turns out that people don't believe me?'
'Are these the same people who say that something monstrous is going on?' said the tutor.
'Yes but some other people are saying it too,' said the King.
'Then they are horrible, despicable people too,' said the tutor.
'We're on the right track, then?' said the King.
'Totally,' said the tutor.
'That's good,' said the King.
Finally, in a supreme bit of cruel irony, in the middle of various news article about Palestine up pops an advert for Luxury Persian Rugs. Presumably there is some bit of AI that picks up vocabulary and realises that the articles in question refer to places near Persia and so, up pops the advert.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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