Floods, sweat and tears

If you are one of the people whose home has been flooded or damaged following recent spells of violent stormy weather in the UK, you have my sympathies.  What you're going through at the moment must be absolutely ghastly, and no one would want to be in that position.

But almost as ghastly has been the response of politicians, the media, and the general public to what I'm sure, by now, must be termed the flooding crisis.

Let's be absolutely clear, here - the flooding is terrible, yes, but it isn't particularly anybody's fault.  There is a worrying tendency in our modern culture, whenever misfortune befalls us, to sit back, pouting with disapproval, superciliously demanding to know "what are they going to do about it?"

Whom, exactly, is supposed to "do something about it"?  Damage caused to personal property by the weather is unfortunate and inconvenient (to put it extremely mildly!), but we are dealing with forces of nature well out of our control; we can't just stamp our feet and demand recompense.  Who is going to pay it?

The government, of course.  Or, at least, that's what plenty of people are calling for.  Now, there are plenty of things for which you can fault the current Coalition government - but I really don't think that they control the weather.  (The other day I genuinely saw someone on Twitter refer to the recent downpour as 'Tory rain' - not just rain, but Tory rain.  Rain which believes in tax cuts, private sector enterprise and personal responsibility.  If that's not political hyperbole, I don't know what is!)

Of course, politicians don't help themselves.  David Cameron said yesterday that "money is no object" when it comes to helping victims of floods - which is, frankly, a stupid thing to say.  And for days, now, senior political figures from all parties have rushed to flood-stricken areas to do precisely nothing other than to be seen going there.  Naturally, people see right through that, lambasting the politicians for being so opportunistic as to turn up in flood-hit regions looking for photo opportunities where they can act like they care - but these same people would be the first to hit out at 'uncaring, out-of-touch' politicians if they didn't put in a token appearance in flooded towns and villages!

Ultimately, there's very little that can be done at the moment - and in our something must be done! culture, people find that difficult to swallow.  Our default reaction when we encounter adversity is to point the gnarled finger of blame and cast around for a suitable scapegoat, instead of just dusting ourselves down and getting on with things as best we can; unfortunately, sometimes we have to accept that it isn't anyone's fault, nobody owes us anything - it's just that sometimes, shit happens.  It sucks, but that's life.

Making hammockery of myself

#Snow again

There is the finest layer of snow on the ground - more confectionery than weather, in appearance.  Not enough snow to have any significance, really.

These days, I am less enamoured of snow than I used to be.  I think it's a natural process, that we stop being amazed by the things around us, as we get older.  Things which used to be wondrous and exciting now seem mundane, or even irksome.

Snow seems to underline this, in a particular way, though.

I am comfortable with the idea that snow doesn't seem as exciting a prospect for me now as it did, say, six years ago.  What worries me is the idea that I might have reached that stage prematurely.

To think that I wake up to snowfall in the morning, and all I feel is worried - about traffic disruption, or about losing work opportunities as a result of the weather - is not, in itself, an alarming thing.  But when I realise that there are people five or six years older than I am who wake up to snow still feeling the excitement I remember from childhood I fear that I have aged too quickly.

Heatwave decorum

So, I gather it's quite hot at the moment?

Unusually, for Britain, we are having an exceptionally warm Autumn, at the moment, with temperatures in excess of 30º at the end of September, and beginning of October.  Quite remarkable.  But let's not lose our heads, please…

Hot weather - at any time of year - is no excuse suddenly to act or look like a slob.  In the heat, people cease to care how they look, how they come across to others, what impressions they give.  And they are not ashamed; they do this with brazen impunity, and with barefaced disregard for all conventions of decency.

Nobody wants to see people walking down the street in revealing clothing which manages somehow to be both shapeless and far too tight, simultaneously.  Topless middle-aged men, their sweaty beer-guts gleaming in the sunlight, hair plastered to their chests with a combination of perspiration and cheap lager, waddling through town-centres in the middle of the day.

In winter, people retain some sense of style, and decorum.  They wear clothes with gravitas - coats, scarves, gloves.  But when the sun comes out, there is a wild notion that it has suddenly become acceptable to walk around with acres of ruddy bare flesh on show.

If the heat is making you uncomfortable - no one cares.  Please dress normally, and learn to bear the discomfort, rather than subjecting everyone else to your hideous summer wardrobe.

#Snow in the UK!

Ohmigod it's SNOWING!!

Yeah, great...  I'm actually beginning to get quite annoyed by how pathetic we, in Great Britain, are, as a nation, at dealing with snow...

After all, it's not that unusual, is it?  We get some snow most years, during the winter - and yet, every year it's the same!  We panic, and we cancel things...  Any things!  We close schools, and we decide to stop going to the shops, and we start to dress in skins and communicate only in grunts and nods...

And, although I'm not all that old myself, I'm sure this is only a fairly recent thing...  I remember walking to school in the snow, and having snowball fights in the playground at lunchtime...  I actually used to take a sledge to school sometimes, when it snowed; our school field used to slope down to the river, and you could slide down it, and have races - it was great fun!

These days, though, you only have to shout the word "snow" loud enough, and your local school will close!  People will start panic-buying things like milk and carrots (which, apparently, are essential weapons against cold weather!) and fuel...

For some reason, the inclement weather is an excuse to drop everything, lose all common sense and run around like the proverbial decapitated poultry...  Quite frankly, I think it's pathetic!  In my opinion, life goes on - and if the weather's bad you should just stop being so feeble, cope with it, and just get on with things!

A seasonal observation

As the weather gets warmer, and the days get longer, something I have noticed is that, while walking around, driving to work, shopping, eating out, generally going about your daily business as normal, you see more pretty girls in the summer...

Why is this?  Well, I have two possible theories...

Firstly - pretty girls are migratory...  They spend all winter in sunnier climes, in the southern hemisphere, like many of the birds native to Britain...  Then, as spring inches forward, they make the long and arduous journey home to the UK, again, across miles and miles of angry seas and strange continents, to arrive back here in time for summer, to continue their lives...  Before journeying south once more, just a few months later, as autumn draws to a close...  One day, Sir David Attenborough will present a series of documentaries covering this very subject...

The other possibility, of course, is that they are the same girls as you see in the winter, but they appear more attractive, thanks to better lighting in the warmer, sunnier months of the year...  (The "heat haze" which is so common on a warm summer's day may also help to hide any imperfections - particularly if viewed from a distance!)  That a person, when viewed under the soft, flattering, natural light of summer will seem more attractive than the same person lit by the harsh, artificial lighting favoured during the dark winter months, seems, to me, not entirely improbable...

I have not yet made up my mind which of these theories is the most likely...  Which do you think it is?

Rain

It's raining today... It was raining yesterday... I will, most likely, be raining tomorrow... So here's a (possibly) interesting thought about rain...

For a while, I've wondered whether or not rain feels softer when you're higher up... After all, if you drop a penny from 6 feet above the ground, it doesn't do any damage (except maybe to your self-esteem when you realise you've been reduced to dropping pennies from different heights) but if you drop a penny from the top of the Empire State Building it can actually bury itself in a person's skull, or so I'm reliably informed... This is, I think, because from a greater height the penny has more opportunity to increase its velocity...

So, when rain falls from the clouds, if you're on the top of the Empire State Building (which somehow gets itself dragged into all kinds of conversations along similar lines as this) it's fallen a far shorter distance to reach you than when you get rained on at ground level... Does this mean that it feels softer?

I don't know, and I'm unlikely to find out right now, so I thought I'd ask you, my bored and undernourished readers who may or may not exist, to email me at mail@manek.org.uk with an answer, if you know the answer, that is... If not, feel free to email me anyway!