Not another storm- this relentless bad news.

 Not another storm - this relentless bad news.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse it has and how on earth are we going to deal with this latest setback? You keep wracking your head and scratching your head in complete bafflement. First there was the political tedium of Brexit that just kept driving us around the bend for an infinitesimal period of time. Everything that seemed to matter to only the men and women at Westminster suddenly became our problem, our insoluble difficulty, an issue that we were asked to be resolved but clearly had no training in dealing with. 

Then we reached a comprehensive agreement over the conditions laid down by those in Brussels relating to Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. It was all plain sailing, a piece of cake and then we breathed a massive sigh of relief when the negotiations were complete and we were free to do whatever we were doing in the past without all that pesky interference from those European neighours. All amiable handshakes and polite doffing of caps could now be dumped in the dustbin of history. 

At the beginning of 2020 we thought we could all cool off, face the future without our EU chums and just get on with another very uneventful and bland year. Little did we know then is we quite clearly had no idea how things would pan out. What we thought we'd get was a gradual consolidation of relations between the rest of the world and trading alliances in every commodity you could think of. And then the whole world stopped on its axis, the universe collapsed in a heap of deadly viruses and all of the machinery that had kept us alive for so many decades had suddenly been turned off. Welcome coronavirus. 

For almost 10 months Britain, Europe and every continent under the sun has come to a complete halt. Frightful death and hellish suffering have stalked the corridors and residences of every conceivable human habitation. If we thought the 1918 flu epidemic, which claimed millions of lives, was bad we hadn't seen anything yet. Covid 19 has been terrorising, traumatising, tormenting and then reducing vastly talented doctors and nurses to gibbering, sobbing wrecks. We thought we'd seen enough to last a lifetime but once again we were wrong. 

Almost overnight the great world climate has gone about its business and caused absolute consternation. Ladies and Gentlemen we give you Storm Christoph and last night we heard it whipping and whistling, howling and crying, an almost mournful lament pleading for help. For the last couple of winter, storms and tempests have rocked Britain with almost ominous intent. They have tugged at washing lines mercilessly and whined in excruciating pain as if coming out in sympathy with the human race. 

But Storm Christoph really did sound as though it had been swept in from the English channel and just wanted to voice its disapproval about something none of us could quite understand. Then the rains came pouring down in those by now customary Biblical torrents, swirling around in the dark, wintry sky before soaking the roads and pavements with relentless intensity and power. The snows have threatened without quite reaching their intended destination. Storm Christoph though had the proverbial needle. Don't mess with Storm Christoph.

So let's see. In what seem now an endless succession of really bad weather outbreaks we've had forest fires in Australia, hurricanes and typhoons in America and Asia while just for good measure, earthquakes and cyclones have rumbled and then shaken the planet to a fatal standstill at times. Houses and schools have been ripped from their moorings, shops and local businesses now nothing more than a chapter from history and families are in inconsolable grief over the loss of loved ones. And then there was Storm Christoph. 

Then our noble band of weather forecasters provide us with a detailed, running commentary of storm names. Now, for whatever reason, storms have followed a strict alphabetical order . And then we discover that all of these storms have adopted a gender and sex. The fact remains though that if at some point we should get some welcome respite from all of these desperate trials and tribulations then perhaps we may forget what it was like to be normal. Many are searching for any kind of good news and cause for celebration but that's pretty thin on the ground at the moment. 

Still, while there is life there is indeed hope. Surely, by the law of averages this worldwide tragedy will slowly but surely blow over but has now wrought the kind of emotional havoc we have never seen in our lifetimes. You find yourselves drawn easily into comparisons with a proper, full time war and real ammunition, real guns and bombs, all of those ghastly armaments that have so disfigured Planet Earth since perhaps time began. Or seemingly so. 

For a while the winds of circumstance, once so beautifully quoted by the great cricket writer Neville Cardus, are blasting their inexorable way through the shires and counties of dear old England. Global warning is still hiding away at the back of our consciousness and still we wrestle with those knotty issues of the damaged environment that have now come to characteristic modern discussion rooms of our times. 

But this can't last because how much longer can humanity be starved of that psychological connection, the relationships that mean the world to us and the social interaction we so achingly crave. We have endured and tolerated since this is the way it has to be at the moment. There is a recognition of where and how this all began but it still sends shivers down our spines every time we hear about the phenomenal loss of life on quite the most unimaginable scale. 

Still, there are people on life support machines and struggling to breathe and that's the hardest fact to take in. But for the moment even Storm Christoph is making its presence felt and heard quite emphatically and just a bit too boisterously for those who may decide to have an early night and a spot of shut eye. 

So here we are speeding towards the end of January and all we can sense around us is the kind of depressing morbidity and doom laden negativity that none of us could have so accurately predicted at the beginning of last year. The thought occurs to you that perhaps we are about to shortly come full circle and that brighter times lie ahead. Come March and April we'll all be doing the conga around the Trafalgar Square fountains, the lights will go in Piccadilly Circus, demob happy soldiers will grab hold of their girl and plant the most sensual kiss on their mouth. Hold on, this will not mark the conclusion of the Second World War and there will be no need for air raid sirens to remind us that another of Hitler's evil bombs is about to wipe out the City of London.

We will not have to listen to one of Churchill's morale boosting speeches on the Home Service or the Light Programme nor will Dame Vera Lynn be gracing us with those dulcet, honeyed songs. Those were the days that died long ago and the recent passing of Dame Vera Lynn was another reminder of those halcyon days for those who were there. Don't forget though to tell Storm Christoph should swiftly go back from wherever it came from. It's all very regrettable and all so unbearable at times. Don't despair though because we're all here together and we won't be defeated. Keep going everybody.