Well, You've Overseen The Change Of Every Other Aspect Of British Culture..

In this fragmented but supposedly mild country, watching and talking about the weather forecast is meant to be a reassuring, unifying activity.

We've done it for years, after all, until it's become as much a sign of British culture as queuing for things.  

Yet like the traditional British climate, that common weather culture may now be evaporating.

It can join all the other things that're disappearing, like queuing for buses, offering a seat on the train or bus, saying 'please and thank you' and tolerance. 

As the climate crisis has affected this country in more and more unmistakable but uneven ways, TV weather forecasters have increasingly struggled to find the right language to describe this transformation’s daily consequences.

Across all the British TV broadcasters, sometimes within the same bulletin, or even the same sentence, weather forecasters now present sunshine as welcome and oppressive; high temperatures as miraculous and unbearable; rain as an inconvenience and desperately needed; cloud cover as depressing and a relief.

Constant sunshine and heat IS oppressive, when it goes on too long in a country where houses aren't buillt for it, and rain IS a relief when the countryside is a tinderbox with nearly empty reservoirs, due to the influx of immigration with no forward planning. 

Tanned forecasters in sundresses, emphasising the positives for domestic holidaymakers of another record-breaking summer, alternate with grim-faced forecasters suggesting we are experiencing a weather apocalypse.

This year, parts of the country have experienced such contrasting summers – wetter than usual in western Scotland, desert-like in southern England – that we can no longer say they share broadly the same northern European climate.

Yet only from 2015 did an “Apocalyptic genre” of heatwave articles begin to become dominant; and a “Romantic genre” of celebratory coverage remains. In a country where many people still spend much of the year feeling cold, the idea of hot weather as a liberation is likely to linger, for some, for decades to come.

Not for me, I will never enjoy the heat as some do, but then, I never sought out foreign holidays for the heat either. I'd far rather visit somewhere cold and interetesting than lie on a beach all day.

During the record heat of 2022, “weather forecasters faced unprecedented levels of trolling”, the BBC reported, including “hundreds of abusive tweets or emails questioning their reports and telling them to ‘get a grip’… ‘it’s just summer’”. Some of these climate crisis deniers described advice on how to stay cool as “pandering to the ‘woke brigade’”, and accused the BBC and Met Office of “scaremongering” to help the then Conservative government impose unneeded green policies.

This summer, some of these conspiratorial arguments have re-emerged. But with the Tories having in effect turned against net zero, joined by Reform UK, Restore Britain and most of the rightwing media, disagreeing with weather forecasters who express alarm about our changing climate has become more mainstream. Discussing the weather is no longer just small talk, but also a battlefield in the culture wars.

EVERYTHING is now... 

“The climate of the 20th century has now gone,” says Mike Kendon, a Met Office scientist and co-author of State of the UK Climate in 2025, published last month. So far, this year’s weather has been more extreme. Even more than the heat, summer drought and winter floods, its key feature has been the weather getting stuck in one state for months – a characteristic of harsh continental climates, rather than the changeable one around which our society has been built.

That change will be lost amid all the other, bigger changes. 

All Part And Parcel Of Life In Our Capital City, Eh, Mayor Khan?

A man has been arrested after a woman was fatally stabbed on a street in London, and another rushed to hospital. The Metropolitan Police have launched a murder probe following the alleged attack in Shepherd's Bush, west London, on Tuesday. Officers responded to reports of a stabbing at around 8.19am on Askew Road, where two women, aged 52 and 32, were found with stab wounds.The 52-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene, despite the best efforts of medical staff.

Just another example of imported savagery on the capital's streets? We'll know as soon as the names are revealed.

A man, 48, was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder at the scene of the incident.

Detective Inspector Richard MacKenzie, who is leading the investigation, said: 'Our enquiries continue at pace as we work to establish the full circumstances of this deeply tragic incident. 

'Our thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the victim and injured woman. 

'We believe this to be an isolated incident within a residential address, but we know it will cause concern locally. Our officers will remain in the area throughout today.'

So a domestic? And probably not a surprise to the neighbours either...

Should You Be Breeding If This Is Your Attitude To Your Babies Health?

Twenty-week-old Grayson easily could have become one of the tens of thousands of British babies left unvaccinated against polio. His mother, Lily, agrees with the principle of immunisation. But overwhelmed by the early weeks of motherhood, and suffering from post-partum depression after a traumatic birth, she was daunted by the prospect of a long journey to a doctor's surgery.

"I've been through the trenches, awake all night. You don't want to leave the house, or go to a different town."

Not even to protest your newborn against fatal disease? I know better than to wonder why the father couldn’t have taken the kid! 

Weeks ticked by, and eventually Grayson missed the polio and diphtheria jabs he was supposed to get at eight weeks old. By that point he was officially classed by the NHS as "overdue" for vaccination; effectively, he was on his GP's naughty list.

Then Lily realised there was a clinic practically on her doorstep - at a location she hadn't expected.That clinic - in Keighley, west Yorkshire - runs from a vacant retail unit at the Airedale shopping centre, a 1960s-era precinct that locals say has fallen on hard times in recent years, with plenty of empty, boarded-up units. The staff who created the clinic thought: why not use one of those vacant units to administer vaccines?

Well, marginally better than a self-immolating vape shop or Turkish barber VAT fraud outlet, I guess....

It's an imaginative solution to a national problem. Over the last 15 years, childhood vaccination rates have fallen across Britain. The share of five-year-olds in England who have received a four-in-one jab (which protects against viruses like polio and tetanus) is now 81%, down from 89% in 2014. About 84% have received both of their recommended MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jabs, down from 88% a decade ago.

And no, the culprit isn't what you'd expect, either:  

Beccy Baird, a senior fellow at the King's Fund think tank, says that despite colourful media reporting around "anti-vaxxers", most parents who turn down vaccination are not ideologically opposed to it. Convenience plays a big role, she says; vaccination rates are highest when parents regularly interact with medics, who can remind them to get their children jabbed and tell them exactly where to do it.

Then make sure the GP service is there for them to do it, and not ring-fenced by barbed wire and dragon-like receptionists that make it impossible to get an appointment! 

There's Lily, the 18-year-old who finally gets her son Grayson his polio and diphtheria jabs. And there's Keeley, an assistant in a ceramics shop, who arrives with her baby Luca, and is impressed by the clinic's convenience, with no need for an 08:00 phone call or complicated online form.

See? Why aren't the GPs run like this?  

Most of the young mothers have come across online anti-vax posts. "I see these things on Facebook where it's like, don't give your child vaccines because it's got ADHD in them," says Lily. Indeed, Hussain says she still hears parents asking if the MMR jab causes autism, a full 28 years after a link was suggested in a now-discredited paper by the former doctor Andrew Wakefield.

And you'll no doubt hear it until a more convincing arguement for the cause of the rise in the disorder is discoverered. 

The clinic - which serves a relatively poor community - has vaccinated hundreds of infants since 2023, helping to boost coverage in an area that's historically had a low rate of immunisations. As of March this year, 88% of the children registered with Modality AWC (the GP practice that runs the clinic) now receive their first MMR dose by the age of 18 months, up from 78% three years ago.

Is it a 'poor' area in monetary terms, or educational ones? 

Oh, Wales...

A 102-year-old great-grandfather with dementia died days after he was allegedly pushed off stage in his local pub after making a noise complaint.

A 56-year-old man from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, was arrested on suspicion of inflicting grievous bodily harm, and remains under investigation.

Another act of midless savagery from the Land of the Dragon Bully Dog... 

Philip is understood to have been visiting the pub for a drink when he went onto a stage in the venue to complain about the volume of the music.

Robert said: "He just asked them to turn the music down." He said his father turned around to come back down off the stage when he was pushed, and that resulted in a broken hip."[That's] the most upsetting part. He wasn't going to live forever but it's not a nice way, obviously in pain," he said. "We want to see justice, of course. "They must have known he was an old man. It makes you wonder what the world is coming to."

Frequently, yes... 

Det Ch Insp Shelley Comley, senior investigating officer for Gwent Police, said: "We understand the public interest in this incident but want to remind people that, not only is this an active criminal investigation, but there is a family at the heart of it processing the loss of a loved one." She urged people to "consider the impact that inaccurate or speculative comments" including "online commentary" could have.

This boilerplate has to be stuck onto every police statement now, doesn't it? 

The First Burnham Victim Goes Under The Bus....

Step forward, victim:

Ms Haigh serves as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and First Secretary of State, effectively making her Andy Burnham's deputy. The Prime Minister appointed the convicted fraudster to her powerful role, as well as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, after she masterminded his victory in the Makerfield by-election in June. Her position in the higher echelon of Mr Burnham's administration comes less than two years after she was forced to resign from former PM Keir Starmer's Cabinet.

And now we know why he took such a step, so he'd have someone to blame when things went tits up. 

Louise Haigh signed off on a nationwide emergency wildfire alert that startled millions of people across the country. Ms Haigh, who is head of the Cabinet Office, is understood to have approved the alert, which led to panicked Britons jamming 999 lines and startled drivers swerving across motorways.

Bullshit! Don't tell me a decision like this never crossed the PM's desk. 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss', as the song goes...

The Conservatives, who devised the system more than a decade ago, said the alert was only intended to be used in cases where there was an imminent, direct and mainly localised threat to life.A Cabinet Office report explicitly warned against its use for 'lower level' incidents for fear of creating a 'cry wolf' effect, in which phone users either disabled or ignored the alert in cases of genuine emergency.

Indeed, I first heard this fot real as I headed out to a restaurant in Edinburgh for a birthday meal, because extremely high winds were predicted - and materialised! - the next day. 

The Government had initially considered sending a targeted alert to the areas which were most affected or at risk of wildfires. However, by the afternoon, Ms Haigh's department decided to release the alert across the country following calls from the Fire and Rescue Service, The Telegraph reported.

A request they soon had cause to regret. 

But the plea from fire chiefs soon came back to haunt them as emergency switchboards became overloaded by members of the public accusing their neighbours of having a barbecue.

But every cloud has a silver lining for someone: 

One unlikely benefit of the disruptive alerts was that dozens of prisoners had their hidden mobile phones seized after the loud noises blared out from inside their cells on Friday evening.

Oh. well. 

Is This Unusual?

 

Well, It IS Ireland, maybe they dom't bother over there if the cause of death is so blindingly obvious...

A seven-year-old boy is among four seriously injured people in hospital after a crash in County Kildare in which five teenagers were killed while driving the wrong way down a motorway. Two women are in a critical condition, while another woman and the boy are in a serious condition after the head-on crash. It's believed the injured family - two women aged in their 30s and one in her 20s, and the young boy - were travelling to the airport to go on holiday.

And this wasn't a case of teenagers driving like that because they got confused as some elderly drivers do, or were being cgased by police - it was deliberate. 

The five teenagers have been named locally as Joe Carthy from Athy, County Kildare, Alex McCarthy from Carlow, Kamil Pustkowski from Limerick, Jeremy O'Brien and Jack Kennedy, according to Irish broadcaster RTÉ News.

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin said his thoughts and prayers were with the injured and the death of the five teenage boys brought untold grief.

Social media immediatly gave the lie to that, wirh many people quite happy that these hooligans had deleted themselves from the world, being notorious as thorough nuisances in their town, and the sympathy went to the innocent victims who were just trying to get away on holiday. 

Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly described it as a "horrific incident" and "irresponsible and dangerous driving". "What makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media likes regardless of the potentially devastating impact it might have on innocent people and themselves."

Ireland's Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan said on Monday that he condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the "reckless criminal behaviour". "I also want to emphasise that anyone who makes the decision to drive a vehicle deliberately the wrong way down a motorway is engaged in lethally dangerous behaviour and it must stop," O'Callaghan said.

But why would they stop, whrn the police are powerless - or unwilling - to stop them, and they lack the brainpower to realise the consequences of a crash ayyspeed? 

And This Is A Progressive National Newspaper?

...It reads more like some girls magazine like 'Jackie' (Ask your mum):

Having hope in your heart is all well and good, but you also need to know when to give up. At a certain point it’s time to accept cold, hard reality: we’re never going to see pictures of Taylor Swift in her wedding dress, are we?

*shrugs* 

There are many reasons this matters...

There's none, actually. 

...and the first, admittedly, is plain old nosiness, with a side order of entitlement.

Those are reasons, yes, but none of them matter. 

Obviously she is allowed to keep her wedding private, but being denied a glimpse of the dress feels – insert foot stamp here – unfair.

Are you an adult woman? or a 15 year old girl? 

Seeing Swift in her wedding dress would have divulged more about the human being underneath than her most undefended lyric, exposed truths that carefully crafted interview replies have distracted from so far. Seems like the oversharing era was her maiden game.

Polly Hudson is a freelance writer

Makes sense, even the 'Guardian' hasn't sunk so low as to enploy someone to write like this full time! 

'Ms Carty is a complex person...'

Francesca Kolar, mitigating for Carty, said: 'The pre-sentence report highlights that Ms Carty is a complex person. She is grappling with several issues, with alcohol and mental health at the forefront. 'She has a real sense of shame about what happened. She does take accountability for her actions. 'It is plain that alcohol was the disinhibiting factor in this offence.'

Whar did she do? Only climbed over seats at Emirates stadium to grope a teenage girl during an Arsenal Women's match! So less a complex person, more a run of the mill sex offender.

Carty was found guilty of one count of sexual assault against the older girl but cleared of a second charge by a jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court. She was also cleared of two counts of sexual assault relating to the victim's cousin. Carty avoided jail but was given an 18-month community order.

So, multiple teenage girls in fact, even if the jury didn’t think so. Think there might have been more than alcohol circulating in her bloodstream.

Judge Leslie Cuthbert said: 'Instead of immediately admitting to your drunk and unpleasant behaviour you chose to suggest that the girls were lying, meaning that the victim and her cousin had to give evidence. 'You sought to shift the blame onto others.'

So Ms Kolar has lied to the court, shouldn’t she face consequences for that? 

She was given a restraining order which means she will be prevented from contacting the victim for three years and will have to pay £500 in prosecution costs.

£500 is a fraction of the true cost. 

Updating English Country Traditions...

 

...Matt leads the way!

Sunday Funnies...

 See, Disney could be traumatising childhood so much more...