.
Keep Calm and Carry On!
“UK heatwave: Temperatures to rise to 41C amid extreme
heat warning” —BBC News
“The first Red Extreme heat warning issued”
—British Met Office
The BBC is roaring like the sun
With news of scorching days of blazing heat.
All burning thoughts of giddy, gleeful fun
Are dreams that high minds shouldn’t deign to greet—
The Kingdom’s set to wither and ignite.
It’s prey to Gaia’s torrid, tropic bite.
This foolish, fevered theatre of dread,
This woeful show of tragic consequence,
This scripted piffle aimed to stress the head
Of those not blessed with elements of sense,
Will guarantee all revelry and sizzle
Will ebb and flag and droop and sag and shrivel.
I speak as a survivor of rare boils
On British soil in days when heads stayed cool—
A splash of solar sass would never spoil
Our joy with silly, sunless safety rules.
This spell of sweatiness, this hellish bummer
Should be embraced. It’s known elsewhere as Summer.
.
.
Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.
From yesterday: “BBC is forecasting a high temperature of 38°C at 3:00 pm in London tomorrow, Tuesday, July 19.”
And at 12:12 pm London time, the BBC weather page changed the forecast high temperature to 37°C from 38°C …
Maybe we can forget the drama till next year.
When we have cold records, as we have every winter, the “scientists” always say that cold records are to be expected in a warming world. The opposite is also true.
Susan,
What you address here is another example of the West’s gloomy weather of wimpdom–more than enough to make up for any claimed physical warming. The impact of this “gww” may be as profound as the impact of climate change projected by the wildest imaginations.
Julian, I love your deliciously alliterative “West’s gloomy weather of wimpdom” observation – how very true. These whining weather wimps summon enough hot air to engulf the planet in a gasbag of balderdash for decades to come – they ensure flatulent cows are the least of the planet’s problem. Thank you for my morning smile.
Inspired by Brian Yapko:
A ROYAL HEATWAVE
It skims the sizzling Thames. It sidles in
On desert feet to weave and wander through
The City’s heart. It slides down London’s skin
In rivulets of sweat. It boils the blue
Above Big Ben until the hands of time
Melt with wistful memories of a chill
Once kissing Charing Cross with frost – a clime
Saharan claws are set to sear then kill.
I hear the caw of ravens at The Tower.
I spy a swallow’s wing brave singeing skies
As Chicken Little names this sticky hour
Armageddon – a hot-air waft of lies
Pushed as Gaia’s fatal death-row blow
By prophets profiting from toasty woe.
This is hilarious, Susan! I’m thrilled and delighted that my comment inspired you! Those Saharan claws are terrifying! (and I appreciate that little swallow reference.)
You could take this metaphor even farther. In fact, I understand that when it gets sufficiently hot, books will spontaneously combust.
Brian, I’m glad I did your words of inspiration justice and thrilled you spotted the finer details. Thank you for the poetic prompt… I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.
40.3 C (104.5 F) in Lincolnshire and 40.2 C at Heathrow according to the Meteorological Office (not affiliated to the BBC).
Feel free to claim fake news, blah, blah, blah!
“The current official highest registered air temperature on Earth is 56.7 °C (134.1 °F), recorded on 10 July 1913 at Furnace Creek Ranch, in Death Valley in the United States.” – Wiki
Paul, you may not be aware of this, but all types of track and field records are broken every year. I’m sure that means that people will soon be able to run 100 mph and jump skyscrapers in a single bound.
One day of record heat does not mean we are headed for Climageddon, just as a record cold spell does not mean an imminent ice age.
Really, Paul, is this THAT difficult to figure out?
And, Paul, does this mean you welcome your nanny overlords???
Please….
The Death Valley (Global High Temperature) record still stands over a hundred years later, despite the fact that the official weather/temperature station has been moved to a hotter area in Death Valley. If Death Valley isn’t getting hotter… it ain’t GLOBAL, now is it?
Now I’d say that’s a much sweeter cherry than Lincolnshire or Heathrow.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/07/10/death-valley-high-temperature-record-of-july-10-1913/
The article above also points out that the coldest Death Valley temperature record also still stands.
Weather is weather… records are records. They are meant to be conversation prompts, not excuses for the great reset.
Mike, your last sentence in that post goes right to the crux of the matter. The left is CONSTANTLY looking for a new crisis, a new emergency, a new “trouble spot,” a new “cause for concern,” or anything at all that will allow them to get more power over human beings and dictate behavior. I remember one piece of garbage here in the States who rejoiced over the Covid epidemic, saying “Why waste a good crisis?” He didn’t give a rat’s ass about infections or deaths or inconveniences or a wrecked world economy. All he cared about was using Covid as an excuse for amassing more political power to impose leftist mandates on people.
If it isn’t weather, it’ll be something else. The left is now truly bat-shit crazy, and intent upon turning the entire world into what the U.K. is now: a nation of crushed and cowed prisoners who reflexively take orders from arrogant bureaucrats and elitists, while worshiping at the shrine of the omniscient BBC.
You’re exactly right, Joe. I think it is telling that someone who claims to believe in the catastrophic global warming narrative would live near the rising sea water in one of the hottest spots on earth. Perhaps belief has nothing at all to do with it.
Dear Mr. Freeman,
Stay calm, chill out and pour yourself a beer.
Quit pushing all that propagandist fear.
Mike has picked the biggest, ripest cherry
To serve you up a sweet soupçon of merry.
He’s proved the BBC is but a tool
To turn each fighter to a fawning fool.
Don’t let two days of boil spoil your fun –
Quit fretting over Britain’s spate of sun.
Chicken Little’s words are but a rumour.
Don’t let this tiny doomster quash your humour.
Dodge this feathered devil’s taunting trigger –
It’s time to lighten up and have a snigger…
If you’re allergic to my brand of wit
Avoid my page – you pessimistic git.
With best wishes for a brighter and sunnier outlook,
Susan 🙂
Susan, for those who survived the Great Heatwave of ‘22…
London is looking nice and cool tomorrow morning…
19C or about 66F at 7:00 am… Thanks for your sunny perspective, your sunny poem and your fearless magnificence!
‘wit’?
Yes Paul… WIT… not half wit…
Paul, you make my point. You are witless.
The witless are the downfall of the Western world.
I’m glad you’re resorting to base insults. It shows who you both really are, what with all the bullying rhetoric and ‘wit’ when someone doesn’t slavishly toe the line.
As for the childish demand for an apology – I apologise for having an opinion of my own.
It’s called free speech, Paul. You get to say what our authoritarian masters believe, and Susan and I get to say what we believe. The main difference is that Susan and I don’t get our panties in a wad every time we see something we disagree with.
I am so sorry that you are thin skinned.
Paul, let’s get this in perspective. I wrote a poem that wasn’t aimed at you. You took offense and decided to make it all about you, while insulting me and calling me down for my unfavorable words on the BBC. The poem was intended to be a humorous look at the hysteria meted out daily by the MSM. You didn’t like my poem and instead of passing it by, you decided to lash out. You lashed out at Mike and Joe for trying to prove that there is truth in my words.
Mike doesn’t “cherry pick” information. His research is thorough and fair. I am grateful to him and to others for shining a much-needed light on the duplicitous politics of the day. There are very few places one can go to see the immutable truth in all its glory. Dr. Salemi doesn’t “cherry pick” either. He speaks from wisdom and personal experience. You denounced both as the “tag team” without even bothering to answer Joe’s question on the BBC. He’s still waiting. You have turned your back on an enlightening debate and chosen instead to concentrate on the ugly aspects of this thread, the ugliness you began.
I think all of us would do well to heed the quatrain I composed on the spot:
Never argue with the woke;
You can’t convince such stubborn folk.
Perhaps we’ll better meet our goals
Deciding not to feed the trolls!
Freeman’s behavior in this exchange is a biopsy slide of left-liberal attitudes and characteristic reactions.
He starts the fight by calling Susan Bryant “not blessed with elements of sense,” and then snidely questions whether she has “wit.” And when others here fight back sharply, he goes into a state of outraged Victorian dignity, accusing us of base insults and bullying.
This is utterly typical of the liberal left and its partisans. They devoutly believe that they can say whatever they like, but if anyone gives a solid return punch, the response is “uncalled for,” or “insulting,” or “childish.” What a great way to control debate!
Joshua Frank is right. It make no sense whatsoever to try and talk with such people. You might as well argue with a cigar-store Indian.
And since this all began with a poem about hot weather, let me repeat this old American maxim to Paul: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
What is most absurd about all this whining by the BBC trying to whip the Brits up into a panic, is, you live on an island! Surrounded by water! Take a trip to the beach! No matter where you live in Great Britain, you’re no farther than 30, 35 miles tops, from the water! The North Atlantic is wonderfully cold. 30 seconds in the water and you’re cool as a cucumber!
If it’s too hot to sleep at night, we have this wonderful technology called an electric fan. If I made it through the horribly muggy and hot Chicago summers of my childhood with only a fan, you can, too. What a bunch of whiny wankers the media is turning us all into.
Adam, you are spot on. Isn’t it a dreadful shame that an American in Chicago is far more sensible than a Brit in Abu Dhabi when it comes to advice on a heatwave in the UK. I cannot believe a fellow Brit has lost his wits. Whiny wankers (great alliteration) describes every idiot tuning in to their downfall and promoting it. I’m getting outwardly pissed because I want to save us from the cruel clutches of totalitarianism and I will make no apologies for my sassy attitude – it spells survival.
Definition of wit (Entry 1 of 2)
1a : the ability to relate seemingly disparate things so as to illuminate or amuse
b(1) : a talent for banter or persiflage
(2) : a witty utterance or exchange
c : clever or apt humor
d : astuteness of perception or judgment : ACUMEN
ALL OF THE ABOVE
Mike/Susan, we have hit 40.3 in England’s brown and pleasant land today. The predictions of yesterday have come to fruition with many nasty fires, particularly around London and many people have died. We are really not used to this and are all walking around like extras from “The Walking Dead.” Perfect conditions you may say for our many well-funded Climate Change experts. We will be 10 degrees down tomorrow as we crushed and cowed prisoners will revert to speculation on the absence of the blonde buffoon and who will be leading us into the next chapter of our history. I will be switching off the BBC, firing up “The Lark Ascending” and hoping that Horatio will come down from his column to re-claim our lost colonies. England expects so be on your guard. Best wishes guys.
Jeff, My condolences, since I live in Texas I know perfectly well that people die from heat, from drownings, from floods… we die from fires, we die from hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, and all sorts of weather. But Global warming is NOT causing more deaths. In fact it is the exact opposite. Sorry about the fires… that at least is one thing we have not experienced in Texas because of 40C + heat.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2021/02/Goklany-EmpiricalTrends.pdf
Thirty-three pages well worth reading.
Jeff, firstly I know the people of Britain aren’t used to such heat and I’m sorry to hear of the fires. I read about the one at Dartford Heath, a couple of miles down the road from where I used to live… the A2 was my main road to everywhere! We had a freeze in Texas last year that would have been considered mild in the U.K. We weren’t prepared for it as Texans – frozen pipes (we don’t bury pipes six feet under), no power, no water, and the vulnerable suffering from hypothermia. My poem is a knock at all those cashing in politically at the people’s expense in the name of ‘climate change’ and the Green New Deal. I fear we are all cowed and crushed to a certain extent after the draconian lockdowns. I like to push back. Wolf is cried so often I just go with my instinct on the topical poetry front. I hope you and yours are well and cooling down swiftly and I hope my homeland heals much quicker than we did after the hurricane, freeze, and flash flood. The weather can be cruel.
Wow Susan, you have a way with words! I had to look up “piffle”. And I love all the poems in the comments section too. Who knew that warm weather could be this exciting?
Thank you very much, Yael. The British are blessed with a multitude of funny little words, piffle being one of them. I love using them in Texas… especially those strange and naughty words that are for English ears only. Mike has been known to google some of my unheard words mid-disagreement… and we cannot help but dissolve into laughter. The latest one was “pillock”… how on earth can one carry on a serious debate after hearing that?!
A thought provoking perspective:
“Every news bulletin this evening has been screaming about the UK temperature being 40.3C at RAF Coningsby today, Heathrow being 40.2C – in fact, if you exclude airports and RAF airfields due to hot runways and aircraft, the hottest temperature was 39C. Sheer hysteria.
As to the wildfires reported – there have already been dozens of arrests across Europe for arson, there will be more in the UK, unless the Police are afraid of a lefty backlash.” – Richard Page
Richard Page isn’t the only one who suspects arson. The Daily Mail said this, “Police say wildfires that tore through UK on hottest day ever may have been ARSON: Infernos saw residents being rescued from suburban homes and evacuated as dozens of buildings were engulfed by raging blazes…”
Mike, the Mainstream News juggernaut is lying through its teeth, as usual. It’s called “lying for the greater good.” The left has always seen this as a virtuous and commendable action. In Communist countries, it was called “following the Party Line.”
Joe, I’m sending this information to an investigative journalist named Anthony Watts… he has a website called wattsupwiththat.com.
I hope he can get a post out pretty quickly.
I’ve called down the BBC when they deserve it. However today I am giving a nod of appreciation for a rare moment of clarity:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44980493
A video about the heatwave from PJ Watson
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O0XUFbZWOoM&feature=emb_imp_woyt
Susan, the final line of your poem delightfully brings us to back to reality. 41C is undoubtedly hot by British standards, and has come as a shock to many. However, a temporary spell of heat is no cause for hysteria.
I was speaking to someone today who worked in Libya some 30 years ago. He said the usual daily temperature was 44C, but sometimes rose to 50C. Now that’s hot!
David, thank you very much for your sensible and insightful comment. I think the Western world lives in a permanent state of fear… by design. This H. L. Mencken quote springs to mind:
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
We would do well to bear this in mind before we all spontaneously combust in the ever-fanned flames of fright.
Seriously though, about global warming. Carbon. Dioxide. Is. NOT. A. Pollutant. How the media has convinced the public of this idiotic idea is surely one of the most terrible indictments of our educational system imaginable. CO2 is what makes plants grow. Greenhouse growers regularly pump CO2 into their greenhouses, because the more CO2 is in the air, the more efficiently plants can use available water, and the bigger and faster and more widely they grow. More CO2 is causing the “greening” of the earth, as even NASA, in their determination to lead the woke pack of government agencies, has been forced to admit:
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows
The more crops, the more food, so much food that not even Brandon could make us go hungry. The Sahara turns into cropland. Australia turns into the breadbasket of the world. Everyone gets a big beautiful garden, even in Arizona and New Mexico.
450,000 years of Vostok ice core data show that CO2 levels have lagged temperature by up to thousands of years, rather than leading them, because of outgassing by ocean warming. The reason being, the oceans are so big and deep it takes that long for them to warm and to release CO2 into the air. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/12/vostok-ice-cores-and-the-8000-year-lag.php. CO2. Does. Not. Cause. Warming.
Let us assume, though, for the sake of argument, that the global warming hysterics are right. Even if it is warming, warming isn’t uniform over the earth. Warming, when it occurs, is smallest at the tropics, and most pronounced at the poles. The ocean isn’t going to boil away at the equator. No, what will happen is that Canada and Siberia turn into breadbaskets of the world, too, and the tropics go up by a couple of degrees. And, yes, the Brits will have to stiffen their upper lips and pony up for some air conditioners. There will also be some melting at the poles and a gradual sea level rise. Key word: Gradual. No, Floridians, you won’t have to run away from the ocean. It’s not going to catch up to you. Rather, you’re just going to have to hire the Dutch. They’re going to need somewhere to go after their elites turn their country into a starving hellscape. And yes, New York elites, I haven’t forgotten the most critical part in this warming business, the ocean view at your Palm Beach estate might be somewhat marred by the dikes. I know, I know, it’s a tragedy, but unfortunately you might have to climb the stairs to the second floor balcony for that expensive ocean view. Ugh, I know, I know. The humanity!
Adam, are you trying to say that humans are actually capable beings?
I agree. First step, get the Feds and the Globalists all up out of our bidness.
The Thomas court has made a few steps in that direction.
Have you noticed that all our problems stem from too much central government?
The states must take back every single power that the Feds have illegally usurped…
Education would be a great start, but every one of the three letter federal agencies must be abolished. I’m not talking Revolution, I’m talking about a Restoration of State’s Rights that is enshrined in our Constitution.
Thank you for your clear headed look at the insidious seeohtwo idiocy of those who would be our masters.
I agree with you completely about the State’s Rights Restoration that’s needed. I just don’t see it happening here. Reagan ran in 1980 on abolishing the Department of Education. in 1984 he won again in one of the biggest electoral landslides in history, only losing Mondale’s home state. And then Reagan says in addition to shrinking the government, for good measure he wants to audit the gold holdings in Fort Knox and then, what do you know? A “lone wolf” supposedly obsessed with Jodie Foster but also with curious connections to the Bush family almost assassinates him. And 42 years later the Department of Education is 10 times the size it was in 1980. I forget who said it, but the quote goes, “The closest thing on earth to eternal life is a government program.” The deep state is the bureaucracy is the deep state, and it protects its own, by any means necessary.
And the country now is filled with astronomically more moochers and parasites than in 1980, all looking for a handout from Uncle $ugar. All measures of societal health have drastically declined–English and math proficiency, the out of wedlock birth rate, welfare usage, the labor force participation rate–I could go on, but you get the picture. The idiocracy is real, and we’re living in it. Just look at the hue and cry over the Roe overturning. Who knew so many morons would protest their liberties being restored to them? Maybe in 1980 you could have gotten 3/4 of the states together for a constitutional convention on states’ rights, but now that we’ve been importing 3rd-worlders for almost 60 years? I just don’t see it.
No, the only way this gets done is either by armed uprising, or tyranny. That’s always the way it happens in history. I really wish it weren’t so, but I have to be realistic.
I have to agree with Adam on this. There are dozens of sensible, intelligent, and politically sound moves that could be made to improve our national condition, but they simply won’t happen because we have a vast infection, both physical and psychological, in the body politic that prevents salutary change.
Can anyone imagine Biden allowing new drilling for oil to occur, even though we are in a major energy crisis? Can anyone imagine Governor Newscum letting California forests be cleared of deadwood and deciduous waste, even though this is aggravating the wildfires in that state? Prior to two weeks ago, could anyone imagine a Manhattan District Attorney charging an elderly storekeeper with first-degree murder, just for defending himself against a criminal attack?
To anyone reading this who still votes for Democrats or liberals: You have blood on your hands.
“Whenever an unusually hot season is upon us, sweltering humanity talks about the changes in climate and shakes its head in a foreboding fashion.” – The Morning Oregonian July 24, 1906
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOdgUj6yFWE
So the government of Australia is deliberately ERASING ALL RECORDED TEMPERATURE RECORDS prior to 1910, as a way to prevent anyone from contradicting the propagandist claims of left-wing climate-change alarmists today.
Can anyone deny that we are living in Orwell’s “1984”?
Australia is the new Nazi Germany.
Whoever controls the past…
This clip is about a minute and a half long…
https://rumble.com/v1e2djx-this-video-proves-the-media-is-just-lying-to-you-about-climate-change.html
Reason, facts and sound argument will always fall flat in the eyes of those who have become used to kneeling before their masters. So why even bother? Because we are charitable; because we have hope; and because it’s in our nature never to give up despite the specter of futility.