Well, you guys finally got around to
electing your President, and are we Brits glad it’s all over for another four
years! You take so long over it, and take it all so seriously; as if it were a matter of life and death! As if it
really mattered who is in charge! We chaps are much more cynical and (let’s
face it), realistic. We believe that whoever governs, they are all just as bad.
Nothing will really change. The real power is in the hands of multi-million
pound corporations and big business. Presidents and Prime Ministers are nothing
more than figureheads, with very limited influence. Why, we wonder, are you all
so idealistic? Why do you continue to set such store by it all? To get so
exercised by it? Have you not learned from past experience? And the worst thing
is that we have been having chapter and verse of it for the past six months. It
was beginning to feel as though we were the 51st state of the USA;
as if we didn’t have any news of our own on this side of the pond.
You see, we go about it all quite
differently. And I’d like to bet (though I’m not a gambler) that you don’t get
all our electioneering every time you turn on your TVs. Huh? No. I thought not!
Of course, unlike you, we’ve got Madge.
(For the uninitiated, that’s Her Majesty).
And we elect Members of Parliament. At
least, those of us who can still be bothered to vote at all.
And then the
party with the greatest number of votes forms the next government, and they elect their leader, taking account
of the views of their supporters and, in the case of the Labour Party, trade
union membership. It all over in a relative blink of an eye, and with so much
less fuss and who ha. And we don’t inflict it on you!
Anyway, that’s quite enough of that! On to
more important things, and now your elections are over, to some unwelcome news
which, for the second time this year is making headlines here. The weather.
November has seen almost continuous rainfall, and many poor folk have had their
homes flooded for the second or third time in a few short months. You may
recall from my previous submission that the British summer 2012 was the wettest
for one hundred years. Now we are informed by the Met. Office that November was Britain's wettest ever, with an average of 217.4 mm of rain across the UK. Some places had a
whole month’s worth in just one day, and at least two people lost their lives
in the flooding. The emergency services have been at full stretch, rescuing
stranded people and pumping out affected houses. Thousands of people are now
facing a massive clear-up, the prospect of being homeless for Christmas, due to
uninhabitable housing, and the likelihood of being unable to insure their
properties in future. The boffins have promised us a spell of cold, winter, but
thankfully DRY weather over the next few days, but the ground is so sodden that
any amount of rain in the near future will no doubt result in further problems.
Roll on spring 2013.The sooner this year is over, the better, though it won’t
quickly be forgotten. So you see, it’s hard to know what holds the record for
going on and on the most. Our lousy weather, or your boring Presidential
elections!
Across the pond...Penny
