I’m so pleased to know that central England is the whole of our entire planet.

Where I live, we’re gearing up for an above average fire season thanks to another year of prolonged cold spring rain now moving into early fierce heat and dry weather. All the apricot trees have nearly failed because once again, we’re getting false spring in February/March, then prolonged cold and rain in April and May. Very few bees and almost no flies or wasps so far this year, completely abnormal. Parts of India have been sweltering under the highest temperatures on record, there, and Jacobabad, Pakistan, is the hottest city on Earth, regularly reaching 122 degrees F. The residents there joke that when they die and go to hell, they’ll have to bring sweaters.

But nothing counts outside of central England, I suppose. I read about temps so high across large parts of England a couple of years ago that airport tarmacks were melting, but, hey, if the current temp being taken where this guy lives doesn’t break a record, well , tell the bleaching corals throughout the world’s oceans that they’ve got it all wrong. Because this one number confirms the narrative that “everything’s fine”. And we mustn’t question the climate dtatus quo. The Koch Bros, the Bush family and the Cheneys - and the rest of the climate scamming fossil fuel elites - wouldn’t like that.