Chris Sellars
I like to keep an eye on the weather as it’s handy to know which way the wind blows and if a hard rain is gonna fall. I am not qualified though. I don’t call myself an expert or a professional. I have been rained on a lot but I feel fine. Some say I have a sunny disposition and a dry sense of humour but they’re not experts either. I still occasionally listen to the weather forecast. Just to get the meteorolo-gist of it. It should come with a disclaimer saying, ’for entertainment purposes only’. I listen anyway.
The weatherman said it was sunshine and everything was fine. I went out forgetting my mother’s advice to always take a jacket, only to find that there were dark clouds everywhere and rain falling down. I disregarded them; after all, the weather man is a professional. I’ve seen him on the telly pointing at pretty impressive maps and circles and using expert weatherman words like occluded with cyclones and their arch enemy anticyclones.
I’ve been accused of being ‘anti’ a lot of things so I reckon I must be anticyclone too. Who but the driest farmer would vote for a cyclone? We must believe the science. After all, the weatherman knows his highs and lows especially when he gets back to fronts.
The weatherman said it was sunny with long dry spells and I wondered which witch had cast that spell. So my wet hair and clothes, the muddy ground, the dripping leaves, were very unscientific indeed. They obviously hadn’t watched the weather forecast.
I thought I am Homo sapient, a man of wisdom, and I believe the science. Yes I feel cold and wet and I can see the rain but they must be an illusion because I am not an expert and I believe the science. Later the weatherman said it was raining but I could see not a cloud in the sky. I wore my jacket and took my umbrella just so everyone would know that I am smart and I believe the science.
I have a couple of local farmer mates who have lived their entire lives in the district. If I really need an indication of what the weather will be doing, I give them a ring. If there is no answer they’re probably out on the farm and it’s a safe bet she’ll be fine. They have no weather satellites or computer modelling but have a better strike rate than the Met service.
They don’t believe the science because their livelihoods are affected if they get it wrong.
I well remember the weather forecast prior to the catastrophic floods we had over a decade ago. “Occasional showers, some heavy”; no one was prepared for the deluge that washed out roads and brought down slips that blocked highways. A couple of years later in sensational fashion, a ‘weather bomb’ was forecast. It sounded dire. Is a ‘weather bomb’ of greater or lesser magnitude than a hurricane or typhoon? When would it explode?
I received a text message from my sister who watches the weather forecast and is a believer. She has made a vocation of worrying. She warned me to batten down the hatches. She thinks that living in the bush far from suburban city life is harsher and more dangerous than living in a concrete jungle rat race. She is mistaken; the reverse is true and the rats are much more laid back around here. The weather bomb was a fizzer. There were clouds and a few light showers.
The weather forecast is often wrong but interestingly no one ever suggests censoring the Met Service. I have forecast much, usually about the social and political climate Some are already manifest, much is yet to come to pass, but the far-sighted can see it looming on the horizon. Which, unless you’re a flat Earther, means it’s pretty close.
My track record, I am pleased to say, is better than the Met Service, the news agencies and most especially the politicians. Yet Microsoft has locked me out of my email account and my editor at the Mangawhai Focus censors any of my work that is divergent from his own worldview. Mainstream media are worse. So much for the long-held democratic tradition of free speech.
The argument against freedom of speech is one that goes ‘It is dangerous to yell fire in a crowded theatre when there is no fire’. Certainly, I would concede the truth of this but there are instances of fires in theatres when no one yelled fire soon enough to avoid catastrophe. Certainly whenever there is actually a fire in a theatre at its small beginnings (and even the largest of conflagrations have small beginnings) there are only a very few of the patrons who notice the kindling flames. The majority are too captivated by the show.
In the case of the current epidemic of vaccination any of us who smell a little smoke and who may discuss even the possibility of a fire are gagged by the ushers and manhandled out of the theatre. I will take no pleasure in standing in the street and watching those inside burn. We can really only hope that the ushers are the first to fry.
© Worzel
All the World’s a Stage
All the world’s a stage
or so said Billy.
That’s Shakespeare not Gates
It’s the rule not the exception
Reality differs from perception
You play a picture show
In your own cerebral cinema
Old Nick the hidden projectionist
Has you spellbound with the show
Fascinated by fantasy
When the picture’s over,
And you stand alone in the light of the sun
You’ll see clearly what you’ve been
And what you have become
Is your name written in the book of life?
Or merely an extra credit tagged on the movie’s end?
Please share so others can discover The BFD.
