Of breezes and zephers
The Beaufort Scale, the measure of how many yards you will spend futilely chasing your umbrella along a street as it is propelled by a gale (and if you do catch it, how long you will do your Mary Poppins impression before your umbrella folds and you plummet, doing your impression of a rock), is a useful tool for clarifying just how strong the wind is. Like the Eskimos with their snow, the English have thousands of words to describe different degrees of weather – it’s useful to be able to sustain whole conversations about the cimate because it means we don’t have to talk about our feelings. God alone knows how many marriages a debate about a downpour has saved.
The Scale probably needs revision. No breeze is described as ‘smoke rises vertically from chimneys’. This is a useful marker if you are in the countryside, or the eighteenth century, but less useful for a modern city dweller. Possibly ‘steam rises vertically from latte’?
Towards the upper end of the scale we need no new measures, as any official definition above ‘gusty’ is ditched in preference of the traditional English method of emphasis – profanity. So we have ‘bloody windy’ all the way up to ‘fucking windy…and I’ve lost my brolly again!’.
England has once again been buffeted by winds, gales and storms. I know that things were bad out there on Sunday night because when I exited the house on Monday my wheelie bins were lying on their side. I’m glad they fell over actually, as the other option would have been to see them, teetering on their wheels, being blown about the street like duelling galleons.
Less welcome was the realisation that the wind had also tried to dislodge a fence panel. I have to admit that my fence is in a bit of a sorry state. I think it’s actually made from paper mache and the fence posts are not sunk with any great security. Indeed it’s remarkable it’s lasted as long as it has. The paradox is that it stays intact long enough to actually act as something that can catch the wind, leading to the thing swaying like a dipsomaniac at a wine tasting.
So it was that in the failing light, howling wind and driving rain, I was up to my ankles in my wellie boots in mud, waxed jacket flapping round me while I tried to secure the fence panel with nails, screws and string, while it did a great impression of the sails of a floundering schooner.
Still, I got the job done (well done trusty hammer) and squelched back from the garden. Soaked and in ill-temper I felt every inch the farmer to the extent that I even considered a twenty minute rant about DEFRA.
As for the wind, I think it blew itself out that night but I do have a suggestion for the highest gale force definition. It’s the one that drives smokers indoors. Honest to God, I was walking from the office to the station, hat brim down, collar up and passed a couple standing outside a pub, in the driving rain and howling gale, trying to keep a far alight. The bloke was probably wondering why the level of his beer glass wasn’t going down.
The Scale probably needs revision. No breeze is described as ‘smoke rises vertically from chimneys’. This is a useful marker if you are in the countryside, or the eighteenth century, but less useful for a modern city dweller. Possibly ‘steam rises vertically from latte’?
Towards the upper end of the scale we need no new measures, as any official definition above ‘gusty’ is ditched in preference of the traditional English method of emphasis – profanity. So we have ‘bloody windy’ all the way up to ‘fucking windy…and I’ve lost my brolly again!’.
England has once again been buffeted by winds, gales and storms. I know that things were bad out there on Sunday night because when I exited the house on Monday my wheelie bins were lying on their side. I’m glad they fell over actually, as the other option would have been to see them, teetering on their wheels, being blown about the street like duelling galleons.
Less welcome was the realisation that the wind had also tried to dislodge a fence panel. I have to admit that my fence is in a bit of a sorry state. I think it’s actually made from paper mache and the fence posts are not sunk with any great security. Indeed it’s remarkable it’s lasted as long as it has. The paradox is that it stays intact long enough to actually act as something that can catch the wind, leading to the thing swaying like a dipsomaniac at a wine tasting.
So it was that in the failing light, howling wind and driving rain, I was up to my ankles in my wellie boots in mud, waxed jacket flapping round me while I tried to secure the fence panel with nails, screws and string, while it did a great impression of the sails of a floundering schooner.
Still, I got the job done (well done trusty hammer) and squelched back from the garden. Soaked and in ill-temper I felt every inch the farmer to the extent that I even considered a twenty minute rant about DEFRA.
As for the wind, I think it blew itself out that night but I do have a suggestion for the highest gale force definition. It’s the one that drives smokers indoors. Honest to God, I was walking from the office to the station, hat brim down, collar up and passed a couple standing outside a pub, in the driving rain and howling gale, trying to keep a far alight. The bloke was probably wondering why the level of his beer glass wasn’t going down.
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