I am not normally one for urinating on someone’s fireworks. If they are having nice thoughts about something, why should I spoil it? Put your fireworks away for a few moments, folks.
The red tops are predicting that the UK is about to enjoy a ‘Spanish plume’, which will send temperatures into the high thirties for six weeks. I am not an expert on ‘plumes’ but I am an expert, at least in my own mind, on tabloid newspapers. They make stuff up in order to sell newspapers and they get mad people, posing as experts, to help them peddle myths. The name everywhere in this story is called Corbyn.
As soon as there is a weather story, check if the source is one Piers Corbyn. Yes, it is Jeremy’s brother, so we’re already on dodgy ground. Worse still, this one is a more than slightly eccentric weather forecaster who uses evidence-free techniques for guessing future weather patterns and who flies in the face of nearly all scientific evidence in climate change by saying it isn’t happening when it actually is.
Most front page stories on the Daily Express are mad. They usually announce cures for horrible illnesses when none have been found, they promote racism, they involve the royals or Madeleine McCann. It is news for idiots who have no interest in reading stories that might exactly be true.
Corbyn’s name is everywhere in this latest story and it’s been picked up by the usual suspects, though oddly enough not by reputable forecasters who admit it is had to tell what the weather will be like tomorrow never mind later this month. Indeed, reading the Met Office forecast, July could be warmer than usual and August colder than usual, although there is a health warning with the latter which adds, “But we haven’t got a fucking clue.” (These may not be the actual words, but you get the gist.)
This is very wishful thinking from those of us who quite like the sunshine and don’t enjoy the rain, which is almost all of us. And it’s especially so for those of us, and I include myself here, who like nothing more than lying in the sun and doing not much more than reading a book and listening to music.
I have learned one or two things over the years about the weather, though, and that is not to fret about it. I spent last week in the Netherlands and it was largely warm and sunny. This was quite a change from the days of my childhood when it seemed to rain all the time when my mum and me spent entire summers in Rotterdam. This probably makes me a little odd because most folk of a senior disposition seem to remember their childhoods as being times when seasons were seasons and not cold and colder versions of the same thing. Mine, sadly, is of the latter.
My advice is to ignore the ramblings of anyone called Corbyn, especially if they are weather forecasters or clueless politicians. Both are certain to leave you disappointed, both make promises that are unlikely to be kept, at least one of the brothers has a tenuous grip on reality. I’ll allow you to work out which is which.
You can get those fireworks put again now.
