Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
Global warming has ended and we are entering an era of “global boiling” proclaims the secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Gutteres.
Up here it’s been more like what we call typical Keswick Convention weather than any warning of impending climate disasters. Dull, damp, chilly. More an extra sweater than fleeing from forest blazes and flaking out in 48 degree heat.
However climate change is pretty incontrovertible when you look at weather events around the world.
Going green? The problem in Britain is that the main political parties and the middle-classes blocking streets in London and disrupting entertainment events simply have not taken the public along with them.
The green lobby, along with the Mayor of London, has well and truly shot itself in the foot and failed to engage with a public who see green measures as costing them money at a time when finances are tight. The poor don’t vote to become poorer.
When Labour canvassers knocked on doors in Boris Johnson’s former constituency they consistently heard that Sadiq Khan’s Ulez policy was penalising them for going about their daily lives. Everyone wants cleaner air, but at what cost?
If Just Stop Oil activists stopped their juvenile pranks for a moment and gave it some thought they might find there is more support than they think.
But after a series of embarrassing interventions in sports events, and being howled down at the Proms, they just looked foolish.
I agree with Tony Blair. We can’t do everything to solve global warming in this country. The environmentalists have to understand that many of us take climate change seriously. But we can’t all afford electric cars, solar panels and the rest.
When policies are realistic and reasonably affordable I believe many more people will willingly take the green option. Right now they aren’t convinced.
George Alagiah was the finest of men
I’m not ashamed to say I shed a few tears at the news of George Alagiah’s death. He was the finest of men. I had the privilege of doing an interview with him. I have never met a kinder, more decent and compassionate human being. Brave yet gentle, a true gentleman.
In my working world, lasting over 60 years, I’ve met the great and good and occasionally people I never wish to see again. It takes all sorts, as they say. I long ago discovered there is no such thing as “ordinary” people as the politicians so often describe them. Most folk have a story to tell. However, few turn out to be memorable.
I was attending a charity event where George Alagiah was chief guest. I hoped to get a brief comment, but instead I got 45 minutes of his time. He ushered me away from the crowd and we found a private room. “They can do without me for a bit,” he said. “I always like chatting to reporters because at heart that’s what I still am.”
His was a distinguished career, a foreign correspondent long before he read the news. Amazing to think the week before I met him he’d been with Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
He had no ego or self importance. In fact he wanted to know as much about me as I did about him. I have met some famous people but he remains the most impressive, and yet in such a quiet, dignified way.
It’s strange how news of his death, inevitable but still sad, unlocked something emotional in me. When my parents and brother died I had arrangements to make and everything went by in a spin. I had no time to mourn their passing. It’s taken until now, with George Alagiah’s death, to allow me to do that.
If you care for someone, tell them
One of my favourite poems is A Call, by Seamus Heaney. I once interviewed a well-oiled Heaney. Unlike Alagiah it was not my finest journalistic moment. It was hopeless. He kept being plied with drinks by well-wishers and anyway, what do you ask one of the greatest poets of a generation in a five-minute time slot?
But in a poem, which is possibly about his father but never identifies the person, he visits a house and is shown into the back garden where this man is weeding the vegetable patch. The striking of the hall clock for some reason makes him think of loss.
He writes a trenchant final line: “Next thing he spoke, and I nearly said I love you.”
The message: Don’t put it off until tomorrow. The chance may never come again. Don’t have regrets. If you care for someone, tell ’em.
I don’t exactly know how I came to connect George Alagiah with Seamus Heaney, but I did and it seemed right.
Jagger gives hope for all us oldies
Mick Jagger at 80 plans another tour with 79-year-old fellow Rolling Stone Keith Richards. Angela Rippon, a lish 78, is to become the oldest competitor on Strictly.
The Beano comic, at 85, has modernised, gone a bit woke, and with the votes of its young readers and a panel of “sensitising readers” eliminating offensive material, looks set for a few more years.
Life in the oldies yet. Maybe I retired too soon, but my last appearance on the football field, at 69, did end embarrassingly in A&E.
