Marmite

I blogged about climate change last summer (no longer available but I might post it again in due course) shortly after the really really hot spell. In a nutshell I said climate change was real, but we needed to keep on top of the science and continue asking difficult questions, otherwise we’d get our solutions wrong. That made me a climate change denier. Daft, eh? Not only daft, but dangerous. Here’s why.

I hate surprises. They come in many shapes and sizes and I hate the lot of them. Our marriage got off to a rocky start when Hubby refused to tell me where we were going on Honeymoon. He wanted it to be a surprise. I insisted I needed to know where we were going to plan what clothes to take. He told me to ask Mother-in-Law. Seriously? My soon-to-be Hubby suggested I take fashion advice from his mother? I think on some level he didn’t want to get married.

I ought to walk more than I do. It’s the best exercise for physical and mental health. Unlike cycling or weight-lifting it’s safe, as long as you don’t: twist your ankle in a pothole; get run over by a tipper truck (the way I feel about certain tipper trucks, they’d come off worse); pick up a tick in the spinney; get cornered by a cohort of curious cattle; or, as happened today, get pooped on by a pigeon. As for me fending off axe-wielding psychopaths, at least the village newsletter would have a gripping front-page story.

I’ve been struggling with my latest blog. Since Easter weekend! That’s usually a sign I should abandon it and start something new, but on this occasion I was so irritated, I had to get back on an even keel by flushing all the cr-p out of my system, a bit like a textual enema.  Most discussions I have with those who hold opposing views, either in the pub or by email, are constructive, productive and enlightening. Where I struggle is when, as happened on Good Friday, I'm confronted with statements akin to ‘the Earth is flat’ or ‘1 + 1 = 3’ and the more I - politely - present my iron-clad facts and logic, the more I'm dissed, impolitely. There's only one conclusion: They can’t handle the truth! That’s my First Favourite Frase, with apologies to Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

After Mum passed away last May, I found myself not having to drive to hospitals, GPs, sundry health clinics and out of-hours’ chemists. For therapy (mine), I once blogged about a particularly frantic weekend (always a weekend), mentioning that a chemist was ‘foreign’ and I couldn’t understand her accent; we were talking about Mum’s meds so it was crucially relevant to the situation. For that I was called 'offensive'. What? How? Why? Christ knows. Actually, He probably doesn’t, poor chap. He'll be slumped on a cloud with His head in His hands, wondering when ‘Thou Shalt Not Call A Shovel A Shovel’ became the eleventh Commandment. Yup. Jesus was a Northerner.

I first published this piece under the old regime in October last year. I was planning to republish it on Marmite at some stage as promised in a previous blog (here) , but not just yet as I have a lot of new material swimming around my noddle. However, one of the best-ever LinkedIn posts (here) appeared in my feed just now and I just had to HAD TO respond to it with the old blog (slightly upated). So here 'tis. My phone rang recently. It was one of my many gentlemen-friends (don’t tell Hubby) to whom I shall refer as ‘G’. I really enjoy our phone conversations. They follow a familiar pattern. G asks if I have anything to add to the agenda of a forthcoming meeting, or if I can help him with the minutes of the previous meeting because he can’t read his handwriting, that sort of thing. After these committee-niceties, he changes the dynamic with a searching question, along the lines of: • Can you see a way out of the cladding crisis? • Do you think we should have another lockdown?...