Record wind speeds, massive waves and trees felled like fence posts. That was Storm Eunice, apparently. It certainly did what strong winds do and, in fact, the Met Office predictions of when it would kick off and where it would make land were remarkably accurate. They have definitely been getting a lot better since The Great Storm of 1987 and the wonderful Michael Fish’s gaffe that there was no storm on the way.
No fear of any gaffes these days. Quite the opposite. I shave to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 Long Wave, which is about all I can stand and, to coin a Scottish expression, they were really ‘giving it laldy’ about the imminent arrival of Eunice. First the man from the Met gave us a run down on where it would strike, what we could expect and how long it would last. If he forgot to remind us that this was the worst storm in 30 years he need not have feared as the interviewer was always keen to remind us instead. There was much talk of ‘flying objects.’ Then, inevitably, a ‘climate change expert’ was got out of bed to evoke the usual doom, gloom and catastrophising about how it was all getting worse and how it was all our fault. But she was really more concerned with ‘the effects of global warming’ than the problems in hand such as keeping your washing on the line and preventing your hat from blowing off. In any case she was probably well aware that the UK is getting a lot less windy than it used to be; something I am sure, had she said it, would have been edited out of the repeat later in the programme. She also made the incredible claim that flooding was no longer something they were concerned about. Try telling that to the people of North Yorkshire and other areas of England where flooding has become almost an annual event. All to do with poor land management and poor maintenance of drains and culverts and nothing to do with global warming.
Next up a chap from the emergency services was on to tell us all to stay at home lest we encountered the above mentioned ‘flying objects.’ We were exhorted to stay away from the coast and not to be tempted to go and take photographs of the spectacular record breaking waves. Mate, you shouldn’t have told us, folk will be rushing to the coastline like lemmings after that! However, I guess they will be prevented from getting anywhere near the waves by all the representatives of the mainstream media who there will be themselves taking photographs of the spectacular record breaking waves. The pièce de resistance of Mr Emergency Services was that we must not put ourselves in danger or endanger those in the emergency services. This, I thought, was hardly a hairsbreadth away from ‘Stay at home; Save the emergency services.’
Is it just me or are we all a little bit tired of being blamed for whatever bad thing is happening at the time? When Covid infections rose…our fault; Storm Eunice…our fault; a ‘flying object’ takes someone’s eye out…our fault; an emergency man gets injured…our fault. Covid is now on the wane and Storm Eunice will have blown over by now so what is next on the agenda of fear with which the government hopes to keep us gripped? Surely it is time for a plague of locusts. I wonder how they’re going to pin that one on us?
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