Has summer failed? Some thoughts about war. And devious media.

 Running in the rain this morning, I reflected that it’s the first time in a while that I was doing that. Yes, we’ve had rain in recent weeks but it’s mostly been overnight. When we went out for a late afternoon stroll yesterday Phil commented that the summer has been a total wash-out. I disagreed. We’ve had some good days over the last few weeks, hardly what you would call a good summer but not a total failure. Maybe he’s spent too much time working away in the study and so has missed some of the good bits, only noticing the dull parts.

Then this morning I saw this in the Guardian: 

“There has been a widespread feeling that this summer was a big letdown, unusually cool and even cold at times. But was it really so bad? There were some hot spells, and on 12 August temperatures peaked at 34.8C in Cambridge, which was remarkably hot.”

Personally, I think the ‘hot spells’ have mostly been in the southern half of the country. Here in the northwest we’ve had the odd warm day - although Granddaughters Number One and Number Two have both complained about it being too hot. In Granddaughter Number One’s case it may be because she works from home with her laptop pouring out some heat and also with a number of reptiles in vivariums (vivaria?) with heated lamps. And Granddaughter Number Two always complains if the temperature goes above 20°; she prefers cold weather when she can wrap up and feel cosy. Today, however, is not just wet but rather chilly - for the first time in a while I’ve put socks on.

The newspaper item went on: 

“British summers in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s were far more likely to be thoroughly cool. And even the historic long hot summer of 1976 had only one occasion when 34.8C was exceeded, with a high of 35.9C on 3 July in Cheltenham, which set a new record at the time for the UK’s highest temperature.”

I remember the ‘long hot summer of 1976’. We went camping at the end of June in Brittany where it was so hot and sunny that I had serious sunstroke. We returned home to find the same hot and sunny weather but I don’t remember temperatures in the mid 30s. It went on into September. The weather broke more or less on the day a young Frenchman arrived to give conversation classes at the secondary school where I worked. It then rained for weeks and weeks and weeks; he refused to believe that it had ever been hot and sunny here.

The writer of the newspaper item concludes that we now grown accustomed to extremely hot weather and so are disappointed by moderately warm weather:

“Cool spells have become more unusual, and although this July was largely written off as disappointing, it was actually warmer than the average July temperatures over the decades from 1961 to 1990.

What has changed is our perceptions as hot summers have become normalised with the growing impact of the climate crisis.”

That’s the weather report over and done with. Now for more serious stuff.

Zarah Sultana MP commented recently:

“A Foreign Office diplomat, Mark Smith, has resigned because the government refuses to end arms sales to Israel despite its “clear and unquestionable war crimes”.

The government should listen to this brave stand and suspend all arms sales to Israel.”

There seems to be little chance of that at present. And as British armaments are being used to target places further into Russia, increasing the possibility of our involvement in all-out war, perhaps we should reconsider all the aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Palestinians are having to remain in places where conflict and bombing is likely because the so-called ‘safe zones’ and full. Here is a photo of Deir al-Balah, where tents are crammed together as displaced Palestinians camp on the beach in the city in the centre of Gaza.

And finally, Michael Rosen posted this on Facebook this morning:

“Amazing! I hear from my publishers that a national newspaper wants to interview me about a new book of mine which is a book of poetry for children? Wow! That's never happened before. Not for a book of poems for children. Then, I take a look at which paper. Hmmm. I have a hunch that something's going on here. I say to the publishers, it may be that the paper wants to use the book and this interview as a way to ask me some questions about...er...recent events in the hope that I will say something that will give them a headline. So in fact, they're not interested in the book at all. It's a kind of honeytrap. Please tell them that I will not answer any questions on politics or recent events as this interview has come through a publisher. It won't do the book any good. If they want to talk to me about politics and stuff, then they can in another context. So the publisher said they would talk to the paper. And the guy from the paper admitted to them that that's what they would do: they did want to ask me questions about that stuff, but hey, I didn't have to answer the questions. Yeah yeah, I said (when the publishers told me about this), I know that one too: 'Rosen refused to answer the questions about x or y ..etc etc'. So I said thanks but no thanks.”

Devious media people! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!