I’m unsure which weather app my wife Karen utilises on her smart phone. I do know, though, I’d love to live under the wall to wall sunshine which, on a daily basis, it promises to West Yorkshire’s residents. Predictions which, frustratingly, this summer have proved to be the very antithesis of what Zeus has actually bequeathed to the largest English county’s populous.
Ma femme in convinced that the app isn’t a parody. Assuring me, that to the best of her knowledge, she hasn’t downloaded a mischievous phone portal designed to whimsically mislead viewers of a need to pack factor 20 sun lotion, instead of their brollies.
However, the alarming frequency in which it provides inaccurate weather forecasts has led me to take these weather soothsayings with a pinch of salt. Concluding it’s source of information is more likely to be local eccentric old Fred, not the Met Office.
Old Fred, a patron of Garforth Working Men’s Club who boasts his erratic bunion activity provides him with the foresight to predict upcoming meteorology. However, as he’s unwilling to cascade specific details of what his foot cankers indicate weather wise, it’s a boast that has yet to be confirmed as having any basis in fact.
This lack of specificity, leading to cynicism from weather forecasting professionals. Individuals who lambast the pensioner’s alleged foresight as lamentable. Understandably opining his daily ‘after the fact’ announcements to Garforth WMC’s barman of “I see my bunions were right about this afternoon’s downpour, Eddie!“, or “I wish I was surprised today’s gusts were strong enough to blow my hat two miles into Crossgates!” as lacking scientific basis and open to deception.
Bunion sourced meteorological predictions aren’t the only ‘black magic’ gifts Fred claims he possesses. Other quirky boasts including the allegation that every evening, just before midnight, his living room light bulbs attempt to engage him in conversation.
As the illuminated fittings converse in Mandarin Chinese, Fred’s no idea what the light bulbs are alluding to, but he uses the phenomenon as an example to back his claim of being ‘spiritually chosen’.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big advocate of eccentric/idiosyncratic behaviour. In fact, some of my best friends, including my multiple characters, are kooks. One of my more erratic personalities (Bert) in so non-conformist, when holding conscious thought dominion, he insists on introducing a residential entrance and exit password system.
An over officiousness of which I ordinarily disapprove; my disenchantment at Bert’s security consciousness further exacerbated by never being able to remember the password…… An edict that on one occasion, after a heavy night in town, led to me having to sleep in the car.
Seriously, though, I’m intrigued to know why Karen’s weather app constantly predicts sunshine in a summer of almost constant precipitation. Ordinarily, I’m not a conspiracy theorist***, however I’ve grown so distrustful of her smart phone app, with it’s frequently incorrect forecasts of sunshine, I’m beginning to think it’s been developed and retailed by the Suncream Marketing Association.
*** – Apart from in the 1990’s after watching the Oliver Stone movie JFK. The film responsible for turning me into a latter day Jim Garrison – The New Orleans DA who actively sought convictions for what he believed to be the conspiracy behind the assassination of the US president, on 22nd November 1963.
Unsurprisingly, I never found enough information to get the Warren Commission’s findings into the circumstances surrounding JFK’s murder overturned. Consequently, incidents in Dallas that day remain as mysterious as what writers of TV show Dallas were thinking when they re-introduced Bobby Ewing back into the show after killing him off!…… The one thing I’d venture with some certainty, though, is Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t involved in either incident.
