Well. Yesterday was a lovely spring day wasn't it? The sun was shining across the south east and daffodils are now blooming in gay profusion. It was a good day for changing the guards at Buckingham Palace as the high pressure indicated on the map settled over The Thames Valley.
In Wales rain was pissing down and Up North in Yorkshire and suchlike the weather was crap. Scotland and Northern Ireland were the same but who cares? Let's get back to London and the south east where real life is lived.
Tomorrow a devastating gale will sweep across England's garden tragically bringing down trees and causing some structural damage. Please take care of yourselves. If concerned, phone the helpline shown at the end of this bulletin or listen to the prime minister's radio message to his people. Meantime, up in Yorkshire and Lancashire it might be sunny but we don't really know or care. Who would choose to live in those nether regions anyway?
On Saturday, our beloved south east will once again be bathed in golden sunshine. Good day for a picnic in one of our lovely parks or perhaps a trip to the seaside. Her Majesty will be in residence at Windsor Castle as The Union Jack flutters above the famous Round Tower. Lambs will frolic in Windsor Great Park and all will be well with the world. Oh - I almost forgot - there will be floods Up North and severe thunderstorms in Scotland.
So that's all from me. Back to Clarence Tissington-Snodgrass in the studio."
South is best!
ReplyDeleteThat is like a declaration of war!
DeleteWhere's London?
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about the writer Jack London? He died in California in 1916.
DeleteI thought sending part of the BBC's operations to Salford was supposed to solve this sort of London-centric parochialism? (Clearly the weather staff didn't move, I guess!) Do you have a local TV news option that covers local weather?
ReplyDeleteYes - the local weather forecasts are of course focused on Yorkshire but in national forecasts I often detect habitual bias to London and the south east.
DeleteLet us hope no one is killed or injured in tomorrow's gale.
ReplyDeleteShall we all meet in the Barrel Inn (your last post) and toast GK Chesterton?
Tasker may be persuaded to read Chesterton's poem, The Rolling English Road.
It has one of the strangest lines in English verse:
*And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death.*
No wonder Chesterton's faith baffled his friend, Bernard Shaw.
The Rolling English Road: Poetry Foundation.
Haggerty
Sadly, Mr Dunham is painfully shy and would find it difficult to read out a poem in company.
DeleteTasker has vibrato, a voice that owns the room and makes women weak-kneed.
DeleteI bet he sounds like Richard Burton:
*They told me Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed ... *
Or maybe he sounds more like Peter Finch in Network (YouTube):
*We're as angry as hell and we're not going to take it any more !*
Why doesn't Labour use that line against those noodles running the government in Westminster, and that numpy-head Boris Johnstone?
WE'RE AS ANGRY AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE !
Haggerty
Unfortunately, Tasker sounds like Sweep (Sooty's chum). As for Johnson, I believe that the city of Perth has named its football club after him - St Johnson.
DeletePriceless!
ReplyDeleteGlad you got my drift Bob.
DeleteThe Algarve is far nicer weaatherwise, less expensive and full of English people. I vote we move the British Isles to Portugal.
ReplyDeleteI vote we bomb 10 Downing Street.
DeleteI thought various regions had there own tv stations with local news and weather, like BBC Northeast.
ReplyDeleteYes indeed Andrew - we do have local forecasts but also nationwide forecasts from London too.
DeleteYou weren't watching Paul or Abbie or John or Kerrie, then. It wasn't that Owain luvvie was it? He's become a bit southern since he left Look North.
ReplyDeleteI am familiar with all the people you have referred to Tasker but I was thinking about national weather forecasts.
DeleteI get bristly at times when reading my weekly paper, Die ZEIT. It is rather Berlin- and Hamburg-focused, both very far away from my parts of Germany. Stuttgart or even generally Baden-Württemberg rarely feature.
ReplyDeleteOur local TV station is good at news reports and other local features, though, and the main news program on state TV does not seem to be so Berlin-centred. Of course, when they talk about government politics, it usually is Berlin, as that is where Frau Merkel and the others are.
The bias I see is not intentional and I am sure that over the years British TV companies have tried to correct it or at least reduce it. But it is still there.
DeleteYears ago I remember the adage that "Civilisation stopped at Watford Gap"! That was until they built the M1 motorway and southerners found out that there was life out there! It was still a risky business going north because if the locals didn't go barefoot, they wore clogs and kept 't' coal in t'bath!
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong wi' clogs lass?
DeleteNowt lad, juss sayin'
Delete