9th October 2024

I know – where have I been! Well, what with Chronic Fatigue and trying a new gym out, and being made an admin for a rock band fan page! Luckily I am not in charge of it, and there are other admins – it’s quite a bit of work as it is! You might not think that checking and approving or declining peoples wish to join or add a picture or whatever would be taxing, but when you’ve not worked for nearly 15 years and the world of admin seems a million miles from my technical ability, it’s a bit daunting! Bearing in mind also that it has taken me a good half hour to get onto my WordPress account and get to the right site – I have two, and get it into the editing format I want, and being able to edit it – phew, I am knackered now!

Anyway, yesterday I started a blog to go on here, and I can’t find it anywhere, despite saving it as a draft! Aaaargh! Every time I come on here they have changed the way things work, why? It was better when it was like a Word application, you just wrote and published – dead easy!

Well, I’m saving this and off to find some food, and will try to find the draft from yesterday, which strangely enough is about the damage that the weather does to our cities and how many people do not believe in science or global warming, and all of these brown field sites making more places more likely to flood!!

And on the news now, is the aftermath of the storm in Florida, where 3 million people are without power. Fort Myers is still like a scene from a storm film I am bemused once more. I want to laugh, but this is serious. The news reporter has just said “The local people of Tampa believe that the Government makes the weather, controls it and sends it to where they want it to do most harm!! It is apparently a conspiracy!!” BH! My friend (Male ANON) who lives in New York City told me last week that a lot of Americans do not believe in Science or Global Warming! This is true denial, and to a really scary proportion. I mean we’re talking the USA here – lots and lots of people not believing in something that can be proven, and has been for several years! Here’s a little Science – When, for example the water in the Gulf of Mexico reaches 26.5 to 27 degrees, it heats up the air above it, which creates fog, which create clouds, which begin to spin. The spin allows the water (sea) to have the energy to be driven up into the clouds and to create a storm, or a marine heat wave. These storms are becoming more and more regular and worse each time, because the sea is heating up due to the general heat of the globe. It only need raise by 1 degree for the whole planet to shift. Higher sea levels, warmer winters, colder and wetter summers. Humidity when there was not that much. It basically unbalances everything. Oh, and it melts the ice. I wonder where that goes, oh, in the sea!!!! We are a round planet, and everything goes around that comes around. There is no wall holding your ocean in around you nice and safe.

It is 11th October 2024 and the storm in Florida is still raging. It was a category 5 apparently and didn’t hit where they thought it would, except it did hit Tampa and Fort Myers it also hit practically everywhere else too, places where they hadn’t been warned or asked to leave! But what really stood out to me, was a gentleman who said with much humility “It is Mother Earth getting her own back for all the destruction we have put her through.” At last a man with a mind! His house has been utterly destroyed, all of hit belongings, even his shoes, he was walking around in his socks! A massive tree outside of his wreck of a house was torn from the earth and lay completely over his car, bent in half like a sparkling drinks can. Apparently the river by the side of him had completely burst its banks, swollen and taken over the road, the insides of all the houses, trapping them indoors, and seeping in too.

Viewing an aerial map there was an enormous circular cloud over the entire area of Florida, and it did hit parts of Mexico too.

Anyway, I wanted talk about how floods start and how we as humans have made things worse and how it correlates with over population, which at the tender age of 14 I wrote on the back of a playing card (lack of something to write on!) “There are too many people in this world!”.

My friend from New York and I were having a discussion about energy and how it takes time to get back into the swing of things after you’ve had a holiday, which is meant to make you recharged yet never seems to work!

So this is the text:”Sorry I have been a bit mute, but been away for our summer break. Just slowly resuming to normal. Not yet at full speed yet, which is crankily slow anyway! Been up to anything exciting?”

His response was surprisingly English!

“Hey Lizzie. Hope you had a nice break. Def hard to get motivated when you get back to reality. Same old story here. Weather is starting to get chilly now. This is the time of year we clean up all the leaves on the yard, put our patio furniture and any other miscellaneous stuff. Preparing for winter. You never really now when it’s gonna snow here. Some years it starts in October, but other years none until January. But that’s life in the Northeast of the US. You get used to it. This may be just stereotype but does it rain all the time in the U.K. Most of the soccer games in the Premier League it looks like it’s raining.”

Well he’s certainly right about that! He’s a Manchester United fan, which is all good as my partner is too and that may aid me in the future for chat!

I responded in the hope that he’d get it:

“It can’t rain all the time…Except this week it has, and our dogs and I seem to have been under a cloud or two. Chilly here too, we have had our wood burner on since we got back, and my layers are mounting up! October seems early for snow! We tend to get it late December, but often until April sometimes! Most years on 11th February, my friend Sarah’s Birthday, it snows or hails! You can almost set your clock to it. Yes, the last few PL matches have been awash with rain, and today I noticed that a few pitches are under a complete lake! Flooding, burst river banks etc. I think half of it is climate change, but also peoples incessant use of concrete, non permeable driveways/fake grass etc. The more building on natural sites – brown sites as we call them over here, the more flood plains are lost, and the more rivers burst their banks. What are your thoughts on this?”

I wasn’t at all sure if he was going to like such a direct question, as most Americans seem to be in denial about Global Warming, and much to my amazement I got this!

“I gotta say I love the Crow reference to start. It’s nice to know you have some nice weather as well. And you don’t need a weather report to know it’s gonna be crappy on Feb 11. And I agree about concrete and all that. I spent 15 yrs doing concrete work. And it can damage (or at least help) with the things you’re describing. So I’m sure that’s part of the problem. And don’t get me started on global warming. You’d be amazed how people in this country (pretty much the Donald Trump followers) don’t believe in climate change, or Science. How do people not believe in Science. Half of the US are morons. But I’m a firm believer in climate change. The climate is absolutely different than previous years. So that’s my thoughts.

I was very impressed! Knowing what concrete does to our landscape and that Science is very important. Education is a huge part in all this I am sure.It surprises me how in a bubble people lead their lives, this even includes some of my acquaintances, people who don’t read books, listen to the radio or the news, don’t understand the country they live ins history! Don’t understand the current goings on in those other countries that scare the life out of me! So I asked him after a day of fuzzy minded thinking:

“Ug, why don’t they just shoot Trump again! Oh and Putin and all this stuff in the world is really getting me down! How do you cope with it? (Iran/Israel/Beirut/Ukraine?)

This is his fantastic reply:

“I am what they call over here a “Never Trumper”. I think he is a garbage human being and it disgusts me how many people (including some friends and family) can honestly buy into his bullshit.(I wanted to say bollocks because I never had the chance to say it to a Brit). But anyway, he is such an egomaniac that he will say or do the wildest or craziest or just plain dumbest things just to make sure he’s in the news non-stop. And you’re right. It’s super depressing that we are this point as a country that he not only won the presidency and was awful but that he has a realistic chance of winning again. Its disheartening. I live surrounded by Trumpers here. Including my father who lives 2 houses away. I can talk til I’m blue in the face about how he’s a deranged 78 yr old lifelong con man, convicted sex offender, narcissistic ass with dementia that’s getting worse by the day but his fans just refuse to see it. It’s crazy. He could be the next Putin, Kim Jong Un or Hitler. I don’t know but it’s a scary time in America.”

My response?

“Blimey! I think it’s awful everywhere to an extent at the moment, but America is such a commitment in what happens in the whole world. You want them behind you when they’re playing ball and on your side, but against you, like Russia is to Ukraine, BH life will not exist. America terrifies me TBH. We’re just a little Island sinking with Immigrants, unable to levy them by asking them to have jobs to go to and come with savings, like USA and NZ & Australia do, we just let them in, and in and in. People think the NHS is being underfunded, it is over stretched, overused like butter spread thinly over toast, the government say schools need more of this, more of that, we just have too many people, we’re bursting at the seams, our locals can’t afford homes or there are no homes to rent as they are full of immigrants! Local houses are too expensive. Local businesses have been outed by corporate businesses, town centers are full of cafes, wine bars, charity shops and drug addicts!! Oh joyful UK!”

I asked him If I may use our conversation on my blog, anonymously, just his home area, and he said yes.This is his badge: His response to being asked is below:

“I guess that would depend on the reach of your podcast. I’m guessing it’s strictly in the UK? There’s a lot of people that don’t like to hear what I’m saying and will be upset by it. Anyway, you were talking about immigrants. I get it. I’m not anti-immigrant by any means. America-written on the Statue of Liberty it says ”Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door”. So that’s the message the founding fathers or whoever put out there for the world. Problem is. We can’t keep up with the flow of immigrants and we support them financially most of the time which is very divisive here. The Republican led states are more anti immigrant, so they literally ship bus loads of immigrants (legal and illegal) to Democratic states and let them deal with it. A lot of people here think the laws of 250 yrs ago should still apply. The right to bear arms in the States is another big issue. A lot of people want more and more guns and make laws so they’re easier to get. It’s a problem. How often do you hear of school shootings in any other country in the world? Our Republican V.P. hopeful actually said “school shootings are just a fact of life”. Should they be? Of course not! Our early leaders who crafted the constitution did not expect to have automatic rifles flooding our streets or they probably would’ve altered the 2nd amendment (the right to bear arms) somewhat. Many people have guns that shouldn’t. And they also didn’t expect to be flooded w so many people seeking refuge here. Many of whom are good, hardworking people. But there’s also many that aren’t good and are not just here illegally. They’re here to get a free ride and commit crimes of every kind. We should be more aware of who’s coming here and why. I know I’m kinda all over the place here but there’s so many topics to cover. But these are a couple of the biggest issues here that are a part of the reason we’re so divided here.”

This is amazing! A gentleman with a brain!

“I agree totally. I’m not against immigrants. Our whole history is riddled with every walk of life, hence our wonderful Italian Ice Cream merchants, and Irish musicians, and Spanish influences to name a few. Victorian London had every race and language, beautiful in some ways, if you were rich, horrendous if you were poor. And yes the UK just give everything to them nowadays, £29K per year and a roof over their heads when there are few common people who earn that much and can afford to have a roof over their human rights heads! It’s all wrong. Some of my best friends at school were of Romany descent and Indian too. They got bullied a lot as most of the kids were middle class white. However I am on their side. I’ve always loved other cultures and actually have said in the past and still hold true to this, I am ashamed to be white. I am one who want to walk the valley of the dead and watch the dead walk by. There, I love Red Indians. Nepalese Indians, Innuits, Aztec, Ester Island Heads, Mayans, Norse, and all the other wonderful peoples. But us white asses are diabolical.And on that note I must go to bed.”

(The terrible thing about CFS is I get both physically and mentally exhausted, so thinking and writing is very draining!).

He replied very simply “Well said.”

Going back to too many people:

In the UK we have far too many people. Too many Births, too many Elderly and too many Immigrants. We can’t keep growing as we do, there will be no space left and nowhere for the rain to be absorbed, so unless you live above sea level or up a mountain you will flood permanently. Not a nice thought.

These are the fears I have. It is nothing to do with race, it is to do with the amount of people. There simply is not enough room for everyone who lives here anyway. I’ve always been aware of too many people. People who have more than 5 children for example – perhaps in Victorian times when you lost 2 or 3 or more from disease or more often starvation, the lack of education and medicine made families bigger. But now, with modern medicine, there is no reason whatsoever to have a big family. Then there’s the IVF culture, and lack of children being adopted. I have never understood why people who can not get pregnant naturally will not take on a child who needs a home! There are silly fears of differences in culture – we’re all the same, adaption to cultures may teach you something! Surely, like getting a rescue animal, there are the same issues, and with animals there is the slight added problem of not being able to communicate with them! At least with a child, you can nurture them to be like you, or you can try your best to make sure you have given them a good grounding in right and wrong and steer them in the right direction! Who knows one of your own may turn out wayward! All people have the ability to be led astray, to be depressed, have addictions, be a bully, or be bullied. As an adult and a parent we must guide our children/partners/friends and help them when we can. I speak from personal experience both of mental health and addiction and also of not being able to have children and have fur children instead!I have not adopted as my partner doesn’t want children and I am now of the age where I am starting to fall to bits!

Anyway. There is an alternative problem too: Most people who have smaller families are educated, wait until they are older and have the money to look after their children. I know this sounds pretty dire, but I was informed that 4 out of 10 children do not have books in the house. That means that their parents do not read either…Some people still can’t read any English. Some children are going to school in their nappies aged 4, even 5! I know there are fewer libraries than there were, but every school has a Library and every Charity Shop I’ve ever visited not only has clothes, toys etc but books! Loads of them! Some untouched, brand new! For 50p. Or some places, 4 for £1. Some book shops do reading circles for children. OK in the hope you will buy the book, but you don’t have to.