Thursday 26 July 2007

Floody fuck almighty

The floods are completely scary, bringing with them sandbags of fear and rivers of eh, not much hope. Having a quick goo on Google though quickly tells you that they are not a 'new' phenomenon. Back in 2003, the BBC reported flooding on a scale not seen since the disastrous autumn of 2000 - on both occasions, torrential rain and flash flooding caused nightmare conditions for thousands of homeowners across the UK - even causing a landslide which derailed a train. The UK responded by spending £390 million on flood defences in a year. Back in the mid 1990s there was further 'major' flooding in the UK, so much so that many insurance companies dropped their flood insurance component of their policies. England actually developed a special 'flood insurance' scheme back in the 1950s, after another prolonged series of major floods. A storm surge in February 1953 - from Yorkshire to the Thames Estuary - caused coastal defences to be pounded by the sea giving way to 'huge' floods. In fact, it's roughly every 50 years since time immemorial that it happens; 1950s, 1930's, 1840's, 1820's etc., etc. Forget the fact that for years in the UK rivers have not been dredged sufficiently, most ditches around the countryside were not regularly cleared and many local authorities have not maintained the drainage systems in their areas. However, I think we should leave aside the obvious for the moment, like the politicians - the flood pawns (or prawns) - and even the environmentalists (is the second half of that word 'mentalists' or is it my imagination?). The Bible nutjobs are using this as another excuse to tell us it's all our own fault. Let's get on board Noah's Ark with the Apocalypse junkies and blame it all on human sin/error/indulgence/consumerism and even masturbation. I'm not even going to give them leaway here by pasting their insane theories. If you read your book of Genesis on the bus on the way to work in the morning, you'll know that there was a worldwide catastrophic flood prior to the creation of that nifty duo Adam and Eve in their south-facing garden. My theory is that Eve went and spoilt it all by inventing the world's first sex toy - the snake (it would take another 3,000 odd years for the Rabbit to be invented), all of which condemned us to ruin. It's her fault that women earn, on average, 18% less than men. Anyhow, in the interim we were warned to pull up our socks and did we listen? Did we fuck, and here we are, on the brink of Armageddon. It's all there in Luke 21:11, the floods and so on, along with drought, famine, tsunamis, earthquakes and a new dictionary of diseases (Mad Cow Disease, SARS, Bird Flu and Ebola to name a few). "How long shall it be to the end of these wonders? A time, times and a half," says some other Bible passage or other. According to the bible bashers who are now reacting gleefully to the new bout of floods, that 'time' is a new deadline date for the end of the world: 2060. So what can you do in the meantime to develop your Noah's complex and save yourself? There's the obvious stuff like buying/building a house high up on a hill and not having children so they won't drown when the sea levels rise again in 2020 & 2030 & 2045, turning down your washing machine to 30 degrees, composting your rubbish, not coveting your neighbour's wife and buying vegetables locally. Other than that, you're fucked. As for the current floods, Browner needs to dip into his pocket and spend more on flood defences, stop dishing out planning permission for housing estates to be built on known flood prone areas, and educate Joe Bloggs on how best to protect his bricks-'n-mortar investment. Medieval Britain may have been full of barmy bastards who lobbed their poo out of windows, but back then they were savvy enough to build their houses on stilts; only the pigs and chickens were stupid enough to live underneath...

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