Postcard from Norfolk

We live in strange times!

I have been away from my London office for my daughter’s wedding and have been bemused by the news reaching me in the wilds of Norfolk.

Scientists at the National Academy of Perverse Political Information (NAPPI for short) have been bewildered by the eruption of a yellow cloud of hot air and rehashed policies which emerged from the Coronation Street studios in Manchester during last week.

Unable to make any sense of it at all, the scientists, many of whom have been working flat out until recently on stories about global warming, climate change and the fact that it is all our fault, were pulled off this important task to concentrate on the yellow/orange phenomenon which threatens the future viability of Cameron Airways and the continued existence of the already bankrupt Brown Tours.

NAPPI has already predicted that the little known yellow peril, known as the Clegg because it emanates from that part of the atmosphere below the troposphere known to occasional meteorologists as the Cantquitebelieveithashappenedtomesaysnickclegg or the Cleggosphere for short, will spread all over the United Kingdom over the next three weeks turning the burgeoning spring colours of blue and green and the fading and wrinkled red and brown to a murky orange.

Nothing like this has happened for almost 100 years and scientists are struggling to come to terms with the problem which threatens to cause major disruption to the established political system of the red and blue airlines.

Nowhere nearly in the same category, comes the volcanic eruption in Southern Iceland on the Eyjafjallajokull glacier (and the threat of a further eruption from the neighbouring volcano, Katla) and the closure of most of Europe’s airspace on account of the plume of ash and dust thrown into the air by the continual explosions.

Reflecting on last weekend’s wedding of my daughter, which took place under blue skies in gloriously warm sunshine, but which sadly was not attended by two of her bridesmaids and a page from Madrid, nor the groom’s godmother who was stuck in Milan, I was amused by the suggestion in the letters column of one of our national newspapers that Gordon Brown really should get a grip on the situation and use some of the mind boggling anti terrorist powers which he has foisted on a supine Parliament to deal with the country which firstly took our fish, then our money (remember the collapse of the Icelandic banks and the subsequent refusal of the populace in Reykjavik and beyond to allow their government to repay what is due) and who have now disrupted our airspace by their pollution.

The daughter has now gone to France for a few days instead of Vietnam and I am sure she and her new husband will have a good time not least because they will be spared the seemingly endless coverage in the press and elsewhere of the differently coloured clouds trying to win our votes and/or prevent us from enjoying ourselves by further extending our carbon footprint. I see from the papers that the authorities are now being accused of over reaction by closing most of the airspace in Northern Europe. The authorities are denying this, so far, but they would, wouldn’t they? After all they are the same people who brought you swine flu earlier in the year!

All this information, or, if some are to be believed, misinformation, led me to wonder how we all managed before the arrival of instant news backed up by the opportunity to make further news by commenting on the news in the first place!


 

Charles Holloway [ www.charlesholloway.co.uk] is a greyhare, lawyer, occasional blogger and father of four grown up children. This article is an edited version of Charles’ post Pyroclastic flow that first appeared in the Millnet Smart e-Discovery blog on 20 April 2010.

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