I have been listening to the BBC.
I do not usually do this any more, because they have developed an alarming tendency to spout drivel, but this afternoon I had come to the end of my online story, and had a slow journey in heavy traffic.
Hence I switched them on.
Alas, I was not disappointed.
They were talking, as they always are, about climate change. They are always talking about this. It is a sad loss that the BBC no longer produces wildlife documentaries on the radio. Instead they just talk endlessly about climate change, lost habitat and extinction, just in case anybody is feeling the yearning for some more bad news.
Wildlife programmes about wildlife that is happy and thriving do not happen any more, a bit like programmes about courageous humane slave traders.
I do think that this is a bit unnecessarily depressing. Even if there was nothing else they could talk about seagulls. They seem to me to be doing very nicely.
This afternoon’s programme was not about wildlife, extinct or otherwise. It was about the sort of climate change that manifests itself in better weather.
They were talking about the current heatwave.
I thought for a few minutes that it must be a repeat, left over from 1976 and being churned out to fill the gap in the airwaves left over by not making radio programmes any more because of bat flu.
It turned out that it wasn’t.
We are all in danger in these terribly hot times, the BBC said gravely. Most especially the elderly. Our fragile health is At Risk.
We must learn to darken our houses, they explained. We must embrace the habit of having a siesta, and we must fit air conditioning to our homes and workplaces. It is too hot, they warned, to do anything, except lock our doors and take very great care of ourselves. If we are to survive this heatwave,and the inevitable ones to follow, we must learn to be more mediterranean, although I thought probably they did not mean in the sense of getting drunk at lunchtime.
Sometimes I think the BBC never goes outside London.
Here in the Lake District I am not yet in danger of removing my thermal vest.
I am wearing it now, under my T-shirt, and this afternoon I considered carefully whether I ought to wear my sheepskin-lined boots as well. I decided against this, but put them in the boot of the taxi, just in case.
Admittedly it is pleasantly warm, at least until the wind blows. I know this because I am not wearing a jersey, and I am not fidgeting and shivering and longing to eat roast potatoes or drink mulled wine.
However it is nowhere near the sort of temperature that might make me contemplate splashing out on an air-conditioning unit, or even on a thinner vest. I left the bedroom window open this morning, and felt pleasantly confident that the air would be in good condition when I returned. As for a siesta, I think they have all been working from home for too long.
Sometimes I do think that the BBC can be a bit alarmist.
BBC aside, something nice happened to me today which made me think regretfully that I might not be a very nice person.
I was parking the taxi when a young man came across and held his hand out to me.
He smiled courteously. He had kind blue eyes and a gentle manner.
He wanted to thank me, he said politely, although somewhat to my mystification, for my help and support the other night, when he had been hurt.
At this point I noticed that he had a limp and a plaster cast on his hand.
It was our rascally window-smasher from the other night.
It had been very kind of me, he said. He had been in a bad state and he was grateful now.
Readers, I did not know where to put myself.
You will recall that I was neither especially helpful, nor terribly sympathetic. I reassured him that he was not going to die, and insisted that he sit still and bled on the pavement until the Thin Blue Line appeared.
In the sober light of day he was not bellowing nor thrashing about nor rampaging around squirting blood and broken glass in his wake.
He was young, and friendly, and I realised that he was actually a thoroughly Nice Boy.
I was so very glad to discover this, and gladder that he was not in either hospital or prison. He must just have been in a shockingly upset state.
I must not make rash judgements. The world is full of nice people.
I am so glad that he turned out to be one.
Have a picture of our garden in the heatwave. You can see it is shrivelled and baking and dry.
