“Flaming June”, that’s what they used to call this month.
As I looked out at the blustery wind blowing the trees around and the occasional flurries of proper rain (I’d already had drizzle when I went out earlier) I wondered what had happened to those school summer terms when the children would pester the teacher with cries of, “Can we have our lesson outside?”
My O-level Spanish class, as we were quite a small group, often managed to persuade our Miss Brown to take us out onto the grass and sit under a tree to continue with our examination of Spanish grammar. Very “Pride of Miss Jean Brodie”, we felt quite privileged!
Health and safety would probably prevent it nowadays. And the teacher would have to fill out a stack of forms beforehand, usually a week or so beforehand, judging by my experience as a teacher myself. Besides who would want to sit on damp grass today with a temperature of about 12° - that’s what my phone’s weather app tells me it is!
No! June 2024 is definitely not doing much flaming at the moment! It’s probably another aspect of climate change. The seasons are all mixed up. Asian hornets, an invasive species which kill bees, are reported to have been spending winter in the UK because of the milder winter weather but summer appears to be in danger of extinction here. Incidentally, Phil thinks he may have inadvertently saved the life of an Asian hornet which was trapped in our kitchen window the other day. He used the time-honoured method of trapping it under a jar and then sliding a card under it in order to then release it into the wild. Then he read an article and recognised it. Had he known then about them killing bees he might have squished it instead.
That’s climate change for you!
Meanwhile, they still keep promoting travel to warmer climes for holidays. They have just launched yet another enormous holiday cruise ship from Cunard in Liverpool. Reasonably famous people turned out to become its “godparents” (yes, the boat has godparents!!) and others flocked along to watch and to admire the fireworks. Another big boat to force its way into quite small harbours at tourist destinations! Here it is, going past Crosby beach, watched by one of Anthony Gormley’s metal men.
And on the political scene Nigel Farage is back! He never really went away but now he’s standing for parliament. I went to the Guardian online this morning and the first headline I saw was about Nigel Farage declaring that we should aim for zero net immigration. He’ll be invited onto Question Time and Newsnight and the Today Programme before we know it. I’ve heard him described as the engineer of Brexit and I still believe that had he not been given so much positive media exposure when he first came on the scene, we might not have left the EU.
If The Monster Raving Loony Party had had the same exposure, the same invitations to appear on chat shows would they too be more than just a rather comical critIcism of the establishment? I wonder!
But all that is another story, and besides, it’s all in the past.
A friend of mine posted / reposted this Farage-related statement by Fred Sirieix:
“I spoke at length and extensively with Nigel Farage for 3 weeks while in the jungle. I wanted to make my own mind up about him and his views.
Conclusion is simple. He was very good at washing the dishes in the river but when it comes to politics he has no plan and no substance.
No vision. No concrete policies. He is not interested in making the UK / the world a better place. He just rants.”
The trouble is that his rants were given air space on supposedly sensible news programmes and people listened to him.
And I suppose ai have given him more exposure now but atvleast it’s not positive.
I had no idea who Fred Sirieix was, not being a great watcher of reality TV but I surmised that he had been on “I’m a Celebrity, get me out of here”. I googled him and this is what I found:
“Fred Sierieix (pronounced see-ree-ecks) born 27 January 1972) is a French maître d’hôtel best known for appearing on Channel 4’s ‘First Dates’, and BBC Two’s ‘Million Pound Menu’. Sirieix grew up in Limoges, France and trained to work in front of house in a Michelin-starred restaurant in France before working at La Tante Claire in London. Until 2019, he was the general manager of Michelin-starred restaurant Galvin at Windows at the London Hilton.”
So, he’s another created celebrity, commenting on a created celebrity! Such is the modern world!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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