Peter Rhodes on political turns, melting glaciers and our Just William prime minister
Whatever happened to Wales as a unit of measurement? By custom and practice, the area of an ice sheet melting because of global warming was always expressed as being the size of Wales, or possibly two or three times the size of Wales. The latest melt-loss in Greenland is described by one news agency as “equivalent to 60 tonnes of ice for every person on earth.” I can't get my head around that. More clarity, please. How many Waleses is this?
Our changing language 1). What we call postal voting, the Americans call mail-in voting. How long, given our insatiable desire to import Americanisms, before mail-in voting becomes the norm here?
Our changing language 2) The latest Hyundai cars include a “substance interior.”
As language changes it tends to get more technical but less descriptive. Today, consultants treat what they refer to as erectile dysfunction. Three hundred years ago, as we learn from Harlots ( BBC1) a sufferer called his condition “dead as a salted slug.”
Yesterday's mention of Oswald Mosley did not touch on his political twists and turns. Mosley was a Tory, Labour and then Independent MP before deciding he was a fascist. Such is life. We often set off in one direction and go entirely another way. By chance, I have just dug up a carrot which demonstrates this universal trend of nature, having bent in 90 degrees as it grew. Sadly, I cannot speak for its politics.
Now we are six. Months, that is. The bewildered, bruised little scrap of humanity dragged into this world in February is now a noisy, confident pre-toddler with a huge smile and a great sense of humour. Our grandson is a lockdown baby, raised in a house with no other children, just four adults whose sheer size must have been puzzling and daunting. I wrote him a poem to explain things: “Four gigantic monsters guard me all day long / Keep me safe from danger, make me big and strong.” Today, after six months on milk, he gets his first taste of baby food. It is one of the rules of life that when you are very young and very old you get your apples pureed.
Here we go again. Two rowdy, drunken British passengers have been arrested in Spain for refusing to put on their face masks on a flight from Tenerife, even after a plea from the pilot. Why do we still put up with this nonsense? If we can test airline passengers for Covid, we can surely test them for alcohol and ban the drunks from flying.
With his money and connections, Boris Johnson could have holidayed in comfort, and with permission, anywhere in Britain. Instead, he chose a tent on a remote Scottish farm, pitching it and lighting a fire without permission. This is straight out of Just William. How will our Prime Minister spend his next holiday- scrumping apples? Cripes.
