Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Boo Bloody Hoo
So I was shopping in the supermarket this afternoon, and there was an enormous queue. I don't really mind this; there always is. The two women in front, however, were having what might have been the most boring conversation in Britain at that moment in time:
Woman 1: It's gonna be three degrees tonight.
Woman 2: Hmmm. Really?
1: Yep.
2: That's cold.
1: Yes.
2: How do you know?
1: It was on the telly
[Long pause]
2: What channel?
1: 1.
2. Oh.
This went on for about five minutes. Both women, bear in mind, were young and attractive, and looked like students. Yet they were talking about the fucking weather.
I consider myself British to my bootstraps, but if I live to be a thousand I won't understand my fellow countrymen's preoccupation with the weather. It's not like we have any, after all. The temperature varies at most between -5 and 30 degrees centigrade all year, and we have no real tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, flash floods or periods of permanent darkness, to name but some of the possible variations that almost never blight this most average of islands.
So do you reckon those ladies will survive tonight? I mean, with the temperature plunging to nearly freezing, I am oh so concerned. If the sheets come off, their toes might almost get chilly.
One thing I can get sad about, however, is the disappearance of weather symbols off the telly. That's right, those little cruddy plastic-looking suns have bitten the dust. As has Michael Fish, apparently. Oh well. I'll live.
In a typical broadcast, Fish falls asleep standing up.
Woman 1: It's gonna be three degrees tonight.
Woman 2: Hmmm. Really?
1: Yep.
2: That's cold.
1: Yes.
2: How do you know?
1: It was on the telly
[Long pause]
2: What channel?
1: 1.
2. Oh.
This went on for about five minutes. Both women, bear in mind, were young and attractive, and looked like students. Yet they were talking about the fucking weather.
I consider myself British to my bootstraps, but if I live to be a thousand I won't understand my fellow countrymen's preoccupation with the weather. It's not like we have any, after all. The temperature varies at most between -5 and 30 degrees centigrade all year, and we have no real tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, flash floods or periods of permanent darkness, to name but some of the possible variations that almost never blight this most average of islands.
So do you reckon those ladies will survive tonight? I mean, with the temperature plunging to nearly freezing, I am oh so concerned. If the sheets come off, their toes might almost get chilly.
One thing I can get sad about, however, is the disappearance of weather symbols off the telly. That's right, those little cruddy plastic-looking suns have bitten the dust. As has Michael Fish, apparently. Oh well. I'll live.
In a typical broadcast, Fish falls asleep standing up.
