Wednesday, December 14, 2005

If, As A Result of Global Warming, The End is Nigh, Why Are The Bright Lights Still A'Twinkling All Across The Town?

At first, I confess, I was sceptical about global warming. Even now, with the planet on the brink of extinction, rare is the day when it is possible to go vestless in Peebles. As far I can see, global warming is a misnomer, and the chaos which man has wreaked upon the planet is more obviously manifested in gales, freak tides, and seagulls living inland, growing flabby on fish suppers.
Since seeing Mr Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds at a Playhouse matinee in 1963 I have been nervous of seabirds, and my fear is increased by the suspicion that their arteries will be hardening as a result of over-exposure to the products of Mr Toni's Fish'n'Chicken Bucket and Barbers'. Mr Toni - a businessman and pragmatist - observed the synergy between deep fat frying and men's hair styling products, and now markets his patented Haddock Styling Mousse at Stolen Goods Markets from the boot of a Vauxhall Victor. So fearful am I of a hard rain of cardio-vascular cormorant that I have taken to wearing a pith helmet on windy afternoons.
But I digress. My point is global warming, and the fact that no one seems to take it seriously. Either it is a crisis which will bring about the end of everything, or it is not. If - as most scientists attest - the End is Nigh, then why are our streets full of Christmas lights and illuminated window displays? Why have the poor been allowed to turn their ex-council properties - which, in the 1980s, we knew as Boat Hooses, because they had been "boat" from the cooncil, and decorated with carriage lamps - into "ho-ho" displays which would eclipse the waltzers at Bastable's Fun Fair? Why are our public buildings illuminated by spotlights? Why are the shops as over-heated as the hummingbird enclosure at Kew Gardens? Why do public houses have outdoor heaters which scorch the scalp as effectively as cheap shampoo?
To those of us who enjoyed the Three Day Week this lax behaviour is a mystery. Since 1973, I have cleaned my teeth in the dark. It is not difficult, though sometimes the Steradent tablet misses the glass.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I used to be taken to the shows at Burntisland, as a nipper, and made to go on the waltzers, by my parents. There I endured a kind of hell, as the gypsy lads who ran it used to jump lithely on the side and perch like muscly, tanned gods, combing their oiled black quiffs and tipping cigarette ash on my head before spinning the car so hard I was seek in huge spinning arcs. I won a goldfish once, though.