Wimbledon is over, but the contest between the England and Australia cricket teams continues – as does the disruptive action at these events by certain parties trying to draw attention to the looming catastrophe of climate change caused by human economic activity. If I’d had the ear of the sporting authorities, I would have suggested they invite the demonstrators to set up stalls from which they could disseminate their message. Not only would this have avoided the expense and inconvenience to their customers of the extra security checks, it would also have lent heft to the demonstrators’ message, since it might be perceived as having the endorsement of the authorities – assuming, of course, that the authorities concur that they are not immune from the coming storm that is already affecting billions of people outside of Wimbledon and a few select cricket grounds. But enlightenment dawns slowly and the messengers will end up in court, which is better than being shot but just as shortsighted.
In our household, Wimbledon fortnight has one avid follower – and it’s not me. I was glad to escape the endless TV coverage, for a week at least, by going to Manchester, on the business of sorting out new tenancies for the two flats we rent out there. I had hoped to find time for some socialising as well, but there was too much to do, so I concentrated on fixing, refurbishing and making sure the new tenants would have no reason to trouble me once I had left town. There is apparent reason in the saying “don’t mix business with pleasure”.
One of my tasks was taking inventories, which always reminds me of childhood and the moves into and out of “married quarters” whenever father was posted to a different Royal Air Force base. What fascinated me was the precise military logic of a description such as – “Table, oak, dining. Qty. 1”. Since then, I’ve had a thing about not getting it the wrong way round, as in “big yellow cushion”. This extends to recipes, which often exasperate me by listing ingredients by measure rather than type, i.e., “1½ teaspoons of finely grated nutmeg”, the reading of which makes the pre-assembly of ingredients tiresome. But I digress from the point, which is that I found myself with an excess of ovens, microwave, Qty. 3. I needed to dispose of one, so I chose the oldest model and took it down to the bins, where a woman – tiny, ancient, Chinese – was examining an upright vacuum cleaner that had been discarded because it’s handle had snapped off. We smiled and, though she spoke only a few words of English, I understood that she was asking me if I could fix it. I convinced her that it was beyond repair and we agreed to put it back into the bin whence she had dragged it. She then switched her interest to my microwave, wanting to know if it was in working condition. I gave her the thumbs up and she indicated she would like it. Now, a microwave is quite heavy – due, I think, to the fact that it contains a mini nuclear reactor – but she would willingly have carried it away, had I not offered to help (I guessed rightly that she lived in an adjacent block that I know to be a housing association full of women, tiny, ancient, Chinese). She appeared chuffed and used her English to the max, saying “thankyou” several times.
The new tenants turned out to be from Arabia and Brazil, which is probably why they were particularly interested in the heating arrangements. Yet the news is currently dominated by reports of dangerously high temperatures on all the continents and, this morning on BBC Radio 4, Professor Sir Bob Watson told us (as if we didn’t know) that governments were not doing enough to mitigate the existential threat to our ecosystem. Not everyone tunes in to radio 4, but I couldn’t help thinking that if he had interrupted a tennis match to say that, he would have been hustled off to face a criminal charge.
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