I really put some deep thought into this:
"Britons’ resolve tested by record rain" by Griff Witte | Washington Post, February 09, 2014
LONDON — Let’s stipulate one thing from the start: Britain has never been known for its salubrious weather.
Great odes have been written to the fog, the clouds, the constant drizzle. From Shakespeare to Sherlock, the patter of rain has formed the ever-present backdrop. Complaining about the damp is a cherished national pastime.
And yet, rarely has it been damp like this. To close out 2013, many parts of Britain experienced their wettest December in decades. The turning of the new year brought the rainiest January in a century. (Maybe even longer. The records don’t go back that far.)
With some areas underwater since Christmas, the usual tut-tutting about the gray has given way to desperate pleas for relief from the wave of storms that has washed over this perpetually waterlogged isle.
Forget ‘‘Keep calm and carry on.’’ This is the winter when the stiff upper lip has gone all wrinkly.
The Sun — the newspaper, not the glowing orb that has scarcely been seen in months — recently ran a front-page cry to the heavens, invoking St. Medard, the patron saint of clear skies.
‘‘Dear Lord, we’ve had enough,’’ read the appeal. ‘‘We ask you please that the rain may stop soon.’’
Meanwhile, California is doing rain dances to end drought -- and to worked!
The paper even enlisted a pair of its famous, and infamous, Page 3 Girls to join in the prayers.
But the petition apparently fell on deaf ears from above: The forecast says the storms will continue.
A soggy inconvenience in some places, including London, the record rainfall has been devastating in others, as roads, farmland, and houses remain submerged across vast swathes of rural England.
Troops have been deployed for flood relief. The prime minister has been raked through the muck in Parliament for his policies on river dredging. Engineers from the Netherlands — a nation that knows a thing or two about the life aquatic — have been called in for emergency consultations.
Julian Temperley, a 65-year-old cider brandy maker from Somerset, said he has 50 acres of land that lie buried in a watery grave — with the unusually warm winter temperatures contributing to the fetid atmosphere.
Yeah, well, something sure does stink.
‘‘There is quite a smell at the moment. Things are rotting under the water, and there are a lot of dead animals floating around,’’ said Temperley, who like many in the area blames the government for failing to keep up with river dredging efforts that could help lessen the storms’ impact. ‘‘Last year was the worst flooding since 1926, and this year is at least twice as bad, if not three times as bad.’’
No doubt part of the austerity-driven budget cuts.
For those shivering through winter in the eastern United States, wondering if British misery, too, can be pinned on the polar vortex, the answer is: to a point.
The contrast between the frigid temperatures of North America with the warmer air farther south has intensified the jet stream over the north Atlantic, and created a conveyor-belt for storms that runs right through Britain. But even as milder temperatures have crept back on the East Coast, there’s no let-up in sight to the rain and wind here.
No they haven't! What a bad deal is this paper!
‘‘The unsettled conditions are going to continue well into the middle of February,’’ said Alex Burkill, meteorologist with the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service.
That's where my print copy ended it, and it's already the middle of February!
The oppressive gloom has led to some unusual coping methods. A pair of teenagers ran away from their elite boarding school in northern England and, parents’ credit cards in hand, hopped a flight to the Dominican Republic. (Authorities later caught up with them at a five-star, beachside hotel, where the only water in sight was seductively warm and aquamarine.)
I'll bet they were looking to get plastic surgery.
But mostly, Britons have just endured — and wondered when it’s all going to stop.
The Rev. Sue Evans, vicar of St. Medard Church and author of the Sun’s front-page plea, said she’s grown accustomed to the daily trek to the stables to wash the mud from her horses’ hooves, so they don’t rot. But she could do without it.
‘‘Everybody is getting tired of this and just hoping that things get back to normal,’’ said Evans. ‘‘We’ll ask God, as we do for all things.’’
--more--"
Related:
"Rainstorms have battered Britain since December and this January was the wettest in more than a century in southern England. The region was due to be hit by more rain and gale-force winds starting Monday. Some blame government budget cuts and inept environmental bureaucracy. Others point to climate change. “We were told it was a one-in-100-year occurrence.... this disaster has been building for years.”
Pfft!
"England has had its wettest January since 1766.
I was told records didn't go back that far!
The southwest coast has been battered by storms and a large area of the low-lying Somerset Levels in the southwest has been under water for more than a month. The disaster has sparked a political storm, with the Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative-led government facing criticism from many residents for allegedly failing to dredge rivers and take other flood-prevention measures. Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg visited flood-hit areas Monday as the government struggled to take charge of the flooding crisis. Cameron denied the government had been slow to respond....
--more--"
Related:
"Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain was in Afghanistan for a pre-Christmas visit with UK soldiers, who form the second-largest NATO contingent fighting to stop the Taliban insurgency. If the Bilateral Security Agreement falls apart, Afghanistan could lose up to $15 billion a year in aid, effectively collapsing its fragile economy."
So what was his carbon footprint anyway?
Let's see what else washed up in my Globe:
"UK lawmakers tell queen to cut costs, boost income" Associated Press, January 29, 2014
LONDON — Britain’s royal household needs to get a little more entrepreneurial, eye possible staff cuts, and replace an ancient palace boiler, lawmakers say in a new report.
The report published Tuesday on the finances of Queen Elizabeth II has exposed crumbling palaces and depleted coffers, and discovered that a royal reserve fund for emergencies is down to its last $1.6 million.
How will they ever get by!
Legislators on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee urged royal officials to adopt a more commercial approach and suggested opening up Buckingham Palace to visitors more often.
The panel said the royal household needed more cash to address a serious maintenance backlog on crumbling palaces.
It said at least 39 percent of royal buildings — and probably more — were in an unacceptable state, ‘‘with some properties in a dangerous or deteriorating condition.’’
--more--"
So where has all that taxpayer money been going? Into Rothschild pockets? It certainly hasn't been going into security (another lone nut?).
And now the prince is getting out of the military? Will the country ever be safe?
"Living standards fall in UK, study says" Associated Press, August 19, 2013
LONDON — Poor families in Britain are struggling to provide basics for their children as the cost of living rises faster than wages and benefits, according to the report from the Child Poverty Action Group.
Forget that! Are the royals okay!?
‘‘This research paints a stark picture of families being squeezed by rising prices and stagnant wages, yet receiving ever-diminishing support from the government over the course of the last year,’’ said Alison Garnham, the group’s chief executive....
They had to bail out banks.
The report comes as Britain’s coalition government, elected in 2010, imposes tough austerity measures to reduce the nation’s budget deficit....
George Osborne, Treasury chief, has acknowledged that the recovery is taking ‘‘longer than anyone hoped’’ but says that tackling the deficit will be better for the country in the long run despite the short- term pain.
Are you Brits as sick of the $hit excuses as we are across the pond?
--more--"
Time to eat:
"UK dumpster divers won’t face charges" by JILL LAWLESS | Associated Press, January 30, 2014
LONDON — British prosecutors on Wednesday reversed their initial decision and dropped criminal charges against a trio of dumpster-divers who allegedly took discarded food from a trash bin behind a supermarket.
The prosecution of Paul May, Jason Chan, and William James had drawn widespread criticism. The Guardian newspaper reported that the three men, who live in a squatted property in north London, took tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese, and cakes worth 33 pounds ($55) from behind a branch of retailer Iceland in October.
They had been charged under the 1824 Vagrancy Act — officially titled “An act for the punishment of idle and disorderly persons, and rogues and vagabonds” — and ordered to appear in court next week.
The case had caused a flurry of criticism on social media sites. After initially confirming the charges, the Crown Prosecution Service released a statement on Wednesday.
‘‘This case has been reviewed by a senior lawyer, and it has been decided that a prosecution is not required in the public interest.’’"
--more--"
I see the British have the same problem with police that we do here in America, although I wonder about the censorship. They even have their own version of Schiavo.
As for the politics, well, "Labor’s conference in Brighton was overshadowed by the release of a book by a former spin doctor dredging up past backstabbing and skulduggery. And there was a brief media frenzy when the book’s publisher, political blogger Iain Dale, scuffled on-camera with protester Stuart Holmes. Dale was given a warning by police. The UKIP conference was derailed, too. Coverage was completely dominated by the moment when Godfrey Bloom jokingly referred to a group of female party members with a sexual slur. He was first suspended and then quit as a UKIP legislator," and it all seems so shallow to me.
The strike was a one-day wonder even as "a judge commended jurors who appeared despite the disruption, thanking them for showing the “Dunkirk spirit,” a reference to the evacuation of British forces from France in 1940 during World War II. The government may also welcome the media focus on the leader of one of the striking unions, Bob Crow, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, who has a reputation as being one of the country’s more militant union bosses. He is facing criticism after a newspaper published photographs of him during the weekend on vacation in Brazil as negotiations to avert the strike were continuing" and the tube was running through the night. In Boston all you would do is go round and round all night long with the Boston Globe.
That would be the same media exposed by the hacking scandal a few years ago; of course, that is all nearly forgotten now. Then there is this silliness over a staged and scripted hoax, and a very poor one at that -- so poor it hurts to laugh now.
And speaking of hoaxes.... I think steel melted by reflected sunlight qualifies as much as jet fuel dropping skyscrapers down at free-fall speed. As for the school bomb plot, well, we've seen too many of them -- as well as the jail breaks of terrorists.
What is not funny at all is the blatant cover-up of the murder of Gareth Williams (the murder of Dr. David Kelly also comes to mind), the continuing reports of slavery in the U.K., and the porn ring busts that are all too suspicious and usually lead to high places.
And maybe it was just me, readers, but I thought the British drank tea (no sugar, please) and paid in pounds, not plastic.
Time for me to hop into the old Rolls Royce and split to Scotland before this posts sinks and the rescue chopper goes down. That gets me current with the U.K.
