It’s been sweltering in the man cave this week. This, apparently, is due to a phenomenon called global warming. And there was me thinking it was just called summer. We have had a yellow heat alert warning (or an amber one, depending on which of the daily drivels you read) which means, apparently, there could be “a rise in deaths” in people aged over 65.
Reluctant as I was to leave the man cave, with this existential threat hanging over me in my 70th year, I had to make a train journey to Manchester. Boarding the train we were warned about the unusually warm weather, to ‘take care’ and carry an extra bottle of water. I didn’t have a single bottle of water, far less an extra one, so it was a tense day for me until I was back home in the shade of my own house. I expect Lawrence of Arabia issued a similar warning to his troops before they set off across the Syrian desert to blow up another train full of Turks, “remember lads, an extra bottle of water.”
Flags
Flags featured in my last piece from the man cave and, guess what, they feature again. The headteacher of Cross Arthurlie Primary School in Barrhead (that’s in deepest Scotland) apologised to parents after a leavers’ event, because there had been some Union Flags on display. Some year 7 pupils – probably members of a far right organisation – had brought the flags along.
I used to drive through Barrhead regularly – and quickly – en route from my parents’ house on the west coast of Scotland to Edinburgh. The very name ‘Barrhead’ or ‘Barrheid’ as the locals would call it, tells you all you need to know. The people, like Irn Bru, are made from girders. Or they used to be. It seems that the ultra-woke have taken over there. Presumably there would not have been a problem with an LGBTQwerty+++ flag.
Israel vs Iran
Our glorious leader, Sir Queer Starmer, is suggesting that we get stuck in over in the Middle East on behalf of Israel in their war against Iran. RAF jets are on the way but, as an article in TCW Defending Freedom makes clear, we’d just be making fools of ourselves. Israel is armed to the teeth with compulsory national service and advanced weapons. The USA likewise, and we’d be up against a country whose ability to strike the hearts of the major cities in Israel (where’s the Iron Dome?) has surprised many.
What are we going to do there? Hand out oranges at half-time? Hold the yarmulkes while the Israelis do the fighting? Surely, it’s time for a reality check in Downing Street; we are no longer an international power, a player on the world stage. Successive governments have hacked away at our armed forces to such an extent that the British Army would not fill Wembley, the RAF is racist (discriminating against white recruits), and the Royal Navy is kept afloat by able-bodied seamen identifying as women.
Neighbours
There is however, good news to round off this rant. This week we invited over for dinner – a barbecue if you must know – an old colleague of mine and his wife. They live close by but in the posh houses, the kind academics could afford 30 years ago. We live in the kind of house an academic can afford now. But it was time to show them life on skid row, so over they came armed with strawberries and cream and the conventional bottle of wine.
I had sensed on previous occasions where we’d met for a beer in the university bar that we were not, necessarily, all on the same page politically. My view on Brexit (wholeheartedly in favour) elicited an obvious reaction on one occasion. Nevertheless, they came.
Much wine was drunk. I finished the evening with a 15% alcohol Malbec that costs about as much as a tank of diesel, and the conversation was flowing. We discovered that, indeed, we were opposites on Brexit. Only two of us had voted the same way in the recent mayoral election, but that local hero Michelle Dewberry – GB News’s blonde bombshell – was a great favourite of theirs, and that we all liked Peter Hitchens.
We got a lovely card the next day, I am working on his Wikipedia page and we have lunch arranged for early August. It strikes me that we are all from a very different generation, one that accepted difference in views as not only inevitable but acceptable. It was delightful to have a cancel culture free evening.
Did I mention that it’s been warm this week?
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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I wonder if in the ‘flaggate’ case any Saltaires were deemed unacceptable by this well- informed Headteacher? Probably not, as everyone knows only the English committed Imperial attrocities and the Scots, Welsh and Irish were totally innocent fellow victims along with the oppressed.
A good read Roger.
‘Global warming’ is so yesterday Roger. We are now at ‘Global Incineration’ point and it will be like that final scene in ‘Knowing’ some time next week or the playground nuke scene in Terminator. And John Laurie will read the Met Office weather forecast: ‘We’re all doomed! Doomed I say!’ ;o)
”I had to make a train journey to Manchester.”
A fate worse than death by global incineration. Ask anyone who has been gobbled up by the ‘Trans-Pennine Express’ (A misnomer if ever there was) never to arrive at Manchester airport! That’s if the train turns up…………