Britons, definitely under the weather!
By Stanley Collymore
Winds gusting, though noticeably without any sustained
intensity, upwards to ninety miles per hour; coastal
waters with obligatory but far from wholehearted
cohesion doing their bit to portray an image
of terror whose fearful perception swiftly
grabs the undivided attention of the
credulous, those who’re easily or
quite prone to be manipulated by a
sensationalist media and transport executives of
the Jobsworth School of act first and think:
a commodity that’s invariably in very
short supply where such people
are concerned, afterwards.
People who unwarrantedly but conveniently hide
behind Health and Safety regulations, because
they’ve definitely nothing positive to offer
themselves, to cover up their systemic
inefficiencies in relation to the jobs
that clearly they should never
have been trusted with
in the first place.
The weather, whether it’s good or bad, is a seasonal but
nevertheless an integral part of the natural cycle
of our known universe evidently and
dispassionately designed as
well as significantly contolled by Nature performing a
delicate and seemingly at times impossible balancing
act between the diverse and not uncommonly so
diametrically opposed interests of both living
and inanimate things that generally compete
with but often and not unusually out of a
common necessity complement each
other as well; a state of affairs
however which mankind, even
with the best of intentions
in mind, will perpetually
remain an interested
but all the same
a bit player.
Which doesn’t mean that human beings should throw
their hands up in despair, lazily sit back and do nothing,
retreat from the predicament they’re faced with, or
even worse still add to the worst elements of
what’s a constantly evolving situation
they already know they’ll be faced
with by asininely adopting and
applying measures that are bound to
exacerbate what is predictably a
problematic development in
the offing for everyone
of us who’s around.
and involved.
Other countries with serial worse weather conditions
than Britain routinely experiences or is ever likely
to confront in the foreseeable future manage to
cope exceedingly well in either forestalling
or successfully combating the very worst
climatic outrages that a volatile and
tempestuous Nature throws at or
recurrently subjects them to.
So why not Britain? Where train schedules are universally
disrupted or completely scrapped as a consequence of
infinitesimal things like leaves falling on the tracks;
bus services similarly halted because of rainwater,
designated as flooding, falling and collecting on
badly constructed roads with no effective or
efficient run-off facilities and water logging them in
the process; with nonsensical risk averse advice
unwisely tendered by the authorities, absurdly
suggesting that people should stay indoors
and work from home. How does that
actually help, I wonder, if your
profession happens to be
a nurse or a doctor?
The weather is quite an obsession in Britain
but that seems to be all where it’s concerned;
because no one in authority here, sure as
hell, seems to have any sensible ideas
how to efficiently deal with it; a
self-inflicted problem that our
Continental neighbours
and others globally
don’t appear
to have.
© Stanley V. Collymore
29 October 2013.
Commentary:
St Jude is the official saint of lost causes; fitting therefore, I suppose, that the storm, which haphazardly struck some parts of Southern England on Monday 28 October 2013 and bearing in mind the ineptitude with which the authorities in Britain consistently deal with natural emergencies here, should be named after him.
The tragedies in terms of the unfortunate loss of life and the destruction of property, though minimal in actuality, are none the less to be deeply regretted. But overall the rather chaotic and invariably incompetent manner in which the British authorities, particularly in a country where the general populace literally obsesses on the weather, deal with impending and even actual natural disasters leads a lot to be desired.
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