Today I shall listen to the news and the football scores and the tally of the dead.
Brian Bilston

Last night, Pádraig went to the Ambassador Theatre, accompanied by a very good friend who had invited him, to see and listen to Brian Bilston who describes himself as a “poet, philosopher and failure”. He thoroughly enjoyed the evening, the company, and the poems, giving it a 5 out of 5.

So on Saturday morning, I looked up some of Brian’s poems, as I had never heard of him before. Brian has been described as “a laureate for our fractured times”, and “the Banksy of the poetry world”.

One of his poems is about the weather forecast, more precisely about today’s climate forecast.

TODAY’S CLIMATE FORECAST

And onto today’s climate forecast,
where we can expect to see a prolonged spell of inaction,
interspersed with patches of hazy promises
across many areas.

Over Westminster and other centres of government,
a build-up of hot air will cause inactivity
to soar to record levels over the coming days,
in spite of the high pressure.

Elsewhere, a front of chronic misinformation
will sweep in from the east,
bringing with it a band of climate change deniers
and the chance of scattered falsehoods,

while powerful gusts of idiocy and ignorance
look set to blow across social media.
Outbreaks of ‘We just got on with it in 1976’
and ‘It’s called the British summer, mate’ are likely.

In summary: unsettling.

It reminded me of how, during the Franco regime in Spain, critics of the regime regularly tried to avoid censorship and prosecution by talking about the weather – when everybody who was closely listening knew that they were talking about the regime.

The poem echoed some of my experiences in recent years and, especially, in recent times with a “system” that asks me to run services for them but then feels threatened and goes into defence mode when I do exactly that.

I don’t have the interest, energy, time, or deposition to engage in senseless dealings with ‘systems’ or, for that matter, people – never mind fights. Life, I know this first hand, is too short and there are by far more important people and matters in life.

Above all, we are living in an open democracy, not a franco-ist regime. We deal with each other in a transparent, open, responsible, accountable, and caring ways.

When we talk about a front of chronic misinformation, scattered falsehoods, a prolonged spell of inaction, or a build-up of hot air, we don’t have to talk about the weather to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

We can refer to things by their name.

Or would that be, In summary: unsettling?

Last week, Pádraig got a pair of new ptosis glasses for testing. They are already making a huge difference.

During the week, he had a meeting with the production team he is working with on a documentary, having great fun, letting the imagination run wild, playing around with ideas, making plans for the future. Being the man he is.

On Saturday morning, he had a nice and somewhat strange encounter of the fourth kind in a sunny park nearby where he went for a walk with someone who wanted to find out more about him, but had trouble to properly communicate.