I'm thoroughly enjoying all the panic about the smog, I must admit.
Such fun to peel back the layers of the hysterical reporting and find admissions in the small print that it's actually 'smog-like', not smog. Hm, yes - they admit, eventually - it is more of a natural weather phenomenon than the actual pollution, per se, as which they are billing it. If I were it, I'd sue for misrepresentation. And libel.
And isn't it helpful of them to warn us that breathing in dust particles may cause harm to people with respiratory difficulties, too - we'd never have worked that one out.
AND (second paragraph starting with and - if it was good enough for Steinbeck...) I love the fact that they all report it as if it's some strange new phenomenon.
The whole thing is utterly fabulous and an example of the journalists of this fine nation in their usual fine fettle, frothing at the mouth and whipping the general public into a frenzy of fear. Dust off your old bird 'flu masks, ladies and gents - your lives could depend on it. Or not.
When I was growing up in Belgium, we gleefully awaited the arrival of "la poussière du Sahara" - the brick red dust which would coat everyone's cars to some degree or another more years than not.
We were all somewhat awe-struck by this exotic, magical desert sand which was transported hundreds of miles across sea and land, high high high in the sky, and deposited, as light as feathers, on cars, windows, streets - anything which stayed still for long enough. In years when it didn't happen, we'd feel as swizzed as the years when it didn't snow at Christmas.
And yet (third time) here we all are, on the other side of a channel narrow enough to actually swim (although not for me - I'm more of a floating around on a lilo kind of bird), having a total panic attack about the whole wonderful thing. Which, although rare in this country, has happened here before, on numerous occasions.
Unfortunately, "Slightly Unusual But Entirely Explicable Weather Situation" doesn't make a great headline.
Here's what happens next.
When it rains, the raindrops will gather up the sand and dust on their way to the earth, and the dust will no longer be hanging around, ruining the atmosphere, like a drunken uncle at a wedding. Well, I hear drunken uncles at weddings are unpopular - personally, they're usually my favourite guests.
The papers will then herald the overnight disappearance of the terrifying return-to-the-pea-soupers-of-yesteryear smog as Most Mysterious. Sigh.
Meanwhile, whatever shall we do? If only we lived in a country where it rains occasionally! If only this were famously the most showery month of the whole year on our temperate, sceptred isle! Oh... hang on...
xxx
Thursday 3 April 2014
Thursday 9 January 2014
2014, eh?! Kuh! Who'd-a thought...
New Year, New You! Resolutions! Bigger (or smaller)! Better! Shinier! Happier! Healthier! Wealthier! BETTTTTTERRRRR!!!
Ah, bollocks, to it.
I'm a big believer in drawing a line under behaviour which you want to change, and I can see that the closing of a year is a good time to do so, but it's also entirely arbitrary. Most of us are skint and knackered from Christmas, and from spending too many of our waking hours in the dark, instead of hibernating like pigs. I mean, cows. I mean BEARS! Sheesh!
We've barely drawn breath (and should still, if we listened to our bodies, be spending about 16 hours a day in our caves) and we start telling ourselves we have to stop eating or drinking this or that, start cleaning or tidying the other (not THE other - hopefully that's ... okay, I'm walking away from this bracket before it gets filthy), kick highly addictive bad habits, make new healthy habits - you get the idea.
If you have a New Year's Resolution, I salute you. I applaud you. And I wish you well in keeping it. Genuinely - that's not some kind of sarky "oh yeah, like, good luck, loser!" kind of wish. I really do wish you well.
If, however, you fall at the third or fourth hurdle (look, even I am trusting you to get beyond the first couple, okay?), don't beat yourself up. Don't give up doing what you started doing. Or start doing what you gave up doing. Just acknowledge that it's a hard time of year to make changes.
Energy levels are depleted. Stores of Vitamin D are low (on which subject, I beg of you that if we ever get any sunshine this year, you allow yourselves and your loved ones at least half an hour a day of sun on your skin with no sunscreen. Please. Just for me. Call it a resolution - one which is easy to keep). Those of us who enjoy the odd drinkie to get us through the evening are probably a little more reliant on it than usual, having got our bodies WELL used to it over the festive season. We've stretched our stomachs so they think they need more food. We've eaten more sweet things than we usually would, and now our insatiable bods are craving sugar. We've lounged around watching telly and allowing our brains to turn to mush when we'd normally be getting up and getting dressed and getting the kids to school and getting to work and tidying the house and doing the admin and going to exercise classes and being a taxi service and eating a healthy amount of healthy food and ALL THE OTHER MILLIONS of day to day tasks.
My resolution - such as it is, and it's not a real one, because I don't make them - is to get up and get dressed and get the kids to school and do some work and tidy the house and do the admin and go to exercise classes and be a taxi service and eat a healthy amount of healthy food throughout January as effectively as I did in December. Which is not always very. But it's MORE effective than it has been for the last three weeks. Once I've got back into the swing of things, which won't take long, I'll rejoice in making a lot of other small changes. But meanwhile, I'm not going to doom myself to failure by making a load of unrealistic resolutions which just end up making me feel bad about myself.
So there.
I will also find time to make a list of things which I really, genuinely would like to improve about myself, my environment and my behaviour. Believe me, it will be a long list. I will then figure out how to make this happen. And then, and only then, I will figure out when the time is right my frame of mind is good enough to tackle these things.
Meanwhile, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow - who the fuck knows?
Happy New Year, my friends.
Ah, bollocks, to it.
I'm a big believer in drawing a line under behaviour which you want to change, and I can see that the closing of a year is a good time to do so, but it's also entirely arbitrary. Most of us are skint and knackered from Christmas, and from spending too many of our waking hours in the dark, instead of hibernating like pigs. I mean, cows. I mean BEARS! Sheesh!
We've barely drawn breath (and should still, if we listened to our bodies, be spending about 16 hours a day in our caves) and we start telling ourselves we have to stop eating or drinking this or that, start cleaning or tidying the other (not THE other - hopefully that's ... okay, I'm walking away from this bracket before it gets filthy), kick highly addictive bad habits, make new healthy habits - you get the idea.
If you have a New Year's Resolution, I salute you. I applaud you. And I wish you well in keeping it. Genuinely - that's not some kind of sarky "oh yeah, like, good luck, loser!" kind of wish. I really do wish you well.
If, however, you fall at the third or fourth hurdle (look, even I am trusting you to get beyond the first couple, okay?), don't beat yourself up. Don't give up doing what you started doing. Or start doing what you gave up doing. Just acknowledge that it's a hard time of year to make changes.
Energy levels are depleted. Stores of Vitamin D are low (on which subject, I beg of you that if we ever get any sunshine this year, you allow yourselves and your loved ones at least half an hour a day of sun on your skin with no sunscreen. Please. Just for me. Call it a resolution - one which is easy to keep). Those of us who enjoy the odd drinkie to get us through the evening are probably a little more reliant on it than usual, having got our bodies WELL used to it over the festive season. We've stretched our stomachs so they think they need more food. We've eaten more sweet things than we usually would, and now our insatiable bods are craving sugar. We've lounged around watching telly and allowing our brains to turn to mush when we'd normally be getting up and getting dressed and getting the kids to school and getting to work and tidying the house and doing the admin and going to exercise classes and being a taxi service and eating a healthy amount of healthy food and ALL THE OTHER MILLIONS of day to day tasks.
My resolution - such as it is, and it's not a real one, because I don't make them - is to get up and get dressed and get the kids to school and do some work and tidy the house and do the admin and go to exercise classes and be a taxi service and eat a healthy amount of healthy food throughout January as effectively as I did in December. Which is not always very. But it's MORE effective than it has been for the last three weeks. Once I've got back into the swing of things, which won't take long, I'll rejoice in making a lot of other small changes. But meanwhile, I'm not going to doom myself to failure by making a load of unrealistic resolutions which just end up making me feel bad about myself.
So there.
I will also find time to make a list of things which I really, genuinely would like to improve about myself, my environment and my behaviour. Believe me, it will be a long list. I will then figure out how to make this happen. And then, and only then, I will figure out when the time is right my frame of mind is good enough to tackle these things.
Meanwhile, eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow - who the fuck knows?
Happy New Year, my friends.
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