It’s Sunday and I’ve been catching up on the news after spending yesterday with my daughters walking round a garden centre in search of plants for my garden.
After driving back to my place in something that resembled a small, mobile tropical rain forest we had an ice tea on the back deck and settled down to do a cryptic crossword together. What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow, I asked? A quick check of two different apps on their phones told us there was a 20% chance of light rain according to one and an 80% chance of heavy rain, according to the other. Great. So if the weather forecasts based on modelling can’t even agree on their predictions for the next 24 hours, maybe we might be placing a tad too much faith in models that claim to be able to tell us what’s going to happen over the next century?
But we did learn something new. Did you know that an eclogue is a kind of poem, a pastoral dialogue? Much hilarity ensued as we imagined the pick-up artistry of Welsh farmers as they tried to seduce their sheep.
But I think Welsh farmers will have to dampen down their amorous urges. These ovine buggers are dangerous.
Covid might have been pant-wettingly scary, but wait until the flatulence really kicks in. We’re simply not scared enough, yet.
Meanwhile in the US, people are really struggling with being able to afford luxuries. You know, things like food. So the White House sent out a reassuring message
Why haven’t we learned the message yet? After two years of government propaganda you’d think we’d all be well-trained to understand that “things could have been so much worse”. Thank God for those in power for not having made things so much worse than the absolutely hellish shitshow we’re in right now. I can’t be thankful enough.
The White House messaging needs to drastically improve I feel
People, everywhere, are anxious and seeking validation
It was the head-tilt that did it for me, luv.
In the UK, causing anxiety is treated with utmost seriousness. You can be arrested for it.
Media companies are stepping in to do their bit to quell the worldwide epidemic of anxiety by providing helpful trigger warnings.
I thought that’s how movies and shows are made these days - with unlikeable female protagonists? Snarky, unpleasant, stick-thin heroines who would be blown over in a stiff breeze but who can, nevertheless, easily defeat an entire squad of knuckle-dragging hulking special forces soldiers.
When I’m asked who my favourite superhero is I usually reply “Elizabeth Bennet” and watch the look of confusion that ensues.
But the female superhero of the week award goes to the drag queen who exposed her Jenny Taylor to a group of kids. I think we can all stand proud behind this.
And that, dear reader, is the state of the world today on the 31st of July 2022 neatly summed up in one drag queen package.
I’m off to write an eclogue.
Women have been harmed by these unrealistic Hollywood portrayals of girlbosses tossing aside 230 pound men. A few years ago I read a news report of a woman in her 20s having her iPhone stolen from her hands by an enterprising youth. Rather than writing off the incident as part of the charm of big city living, she decided to pursue the thief (Wonder Woman-style), no doubt ready to give him a thrashing. She apprehended him in a parking garage where he promptly sexually assaulted her.
People really do believe the nonsense they see in movies.
Weather forecasting otherwise known as meteorology is the only ‘profession’ where you can be consistently wrong and still have a job. (Recently joined by doctors and public health officials, and climate scientists......wow, that list is growing)