It was cold last night. I gave the boat a half-hearted burst of heat for a few minutes in mid-evening but then thought better of it and dug out a sweater. But we had the best of it. In Scotland the Sassenachs shivered through one of the coldest nights recorded for May with temperatures plunging to 25 Fahrenheit at Tulloch Bridge in the Highlands. Clear skies and an Arctic wind produced a freezing snap. We are clearly heading for a New Ice Age.
On 23rd May 1935 Britain was carpeted in snow. Small villages in the Yorkshire Dales were two to three feet deep in snow and villages had to dig themselves out of their homes according to a report in The Times. Cars were abandoned in snowdrifts on roads and trains derailed on frozen railway points. Devon and Cornwall were said to look like a scene from a Christmas card. The bitter cold spelt disaster for fruit and vegetable farmers from South Wales to Kent.
The Times reported a loss of thousands of pounds in Sittingbourne. In desperation one apple grower used thousands of oil lamps to save his crop from freezing. And at the Chelsea Flower Show exhibitors worked frantically to save prize plants using heaters in greenhouses to keep the blooms alive in the bitterly cold nights. With this wasteful and extravagant use of oil no wonder the world is running out. Oil for flowers indeed!
But what does this tell us about the temperature? Snow was falling so it would have been hovering around 32 Fahrenheit. Humidity levels and wind chill factors would have done the rest. A fall in temperature of seven degrees over 71 years is an average drop of 0.0547731 degrees per year. What a disaster. By 2100 temperatures will have fallen by a massive ten degrees. There will be icebergs in the Thames while Londoners mud-skate on the river’s edge.
But there is some good news. There will be no need to tow icebergs from Greenland to solve the capital’s water shortages. Thames Water will be quarrying its own ice and delivering it to the ice houses of the rich and famous in Thames Ditton and Wokingham. But spare a thought for the poor farmer. There are a thousand Sittingbournes in England and there will be thousands of cold spells between now and 2100. With decades of arctic weather, falling sea levels and declining soil fertility the apple orchards will disappear as the farmers throw themselves on the mercy of the bankruptcy courts and their new Debt Orders. There will be massive emigration to Nigeria and the West Indies.
The flowers of late May are beginning to open. On grassy banks there are startling pink clusters of red campion with their five deeply notched pink petals which open in the daytime. The first ox-eye daisies are also peeping out above the grass with their spreading white rays and bright yellow centres. The name ox-eye was a name affectionately given to Hera, the Queen of Olympian gods. Early Christians dedicated the flower to Mary Magdalen which is how the name Maudlin Daisy originated. Another name for leucanthemum vulgare is the Dun Daisy. Celtic legend told how daisies were the spirits of young children that died during birth and connects the flower with the god of thunder.
Mary Magdalen gets an interesting press. The film of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code had its world film premiere at the Cannes Film Festival a couple of weeks back and was roundly condemned by all the critics. Ordinary people take no notice of critics…despite their worship by the chattering classes…and are flocking to see the film. The idea that a director of Ron Howard’s calibre could produce a bad film or that actors of Tom Hanks’ or Ian McClellen’s standing could choose a film with a bad script was always rather far-fetched. I went to see the film today and loved it.
Just the privilege of watching Audrey Tautou for two hours on the silver screen is worth five pounds of my money. She’s my kinda girl. The film took $200 million in its first three days making it number four in Hollywood’s top opening weekends. Besides it’s time that the Christian churches married Jesus off again.