I stayed dry in the house for most of the morning, while keeping an eye out of the kitchen window for even the briefest let-up in the downpour. It never arrived, but in the end the need to put the bins out and pick some garden mint for the casserole I was slow-cooking drove me outside anyway. As I was going, I thought I might as well kill two birds with one stone and take the camera; five minutes later I was back inside, drenched, with a dripping camera in one hand and some sodden mint in the other.
According to the World Weather Attribution group, the UK can look forward to more of this seemingly never-ending rain in the future, and it’s ALL OUR FAULT. Oh joy.
In other news, the Prime Minister who someone wittier than me has christened Tiny Temper also stepped out in the rain this afternoon, and announced a General Election on 4th July. Maybe he had more faith than me that the waters would part for him, or maybe he simply forgot to ask for an umbrella – or perhaps he did ask for an umbrella, but all his staff hate him so much they claimed not to be able to find one – but either way, within a couple of minutes water was running off him in rivulets. Maybe, said a wag on Twitter, that’s why his trousers always look as if they’ve shrunk.
Adding insult to injury, Steve Bray (the Stop Brexit! guy), acting on several hours of Westminster rumour and speculation, had equipped his boom box with the New Labour 1997 election anthem Things Can Only Get Better, and played it at deafening volume from the gates of Downing Street through Sunak’s entire speech. The police (who’ve been hassling Steve Bray ever since the Tories decided to make themselves more popular by criminalising anyone who objects to their behaviour in a public place) stood by and let him get on with it, and in the end it was the weather that intervened, by blowing up his amps. Sunak’s announcement was met with a mixture of amusement and relief in the country, and utter fury from sections of his own party, who promptly began trying to unseat him.
You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.
R: C1 D7.
