We've been having some weather of late in London. I was up in town on Saturday, shopping for birthday gifts for a 14-year-old boy (good luck with that, by-the-way). I was mooching through Oxford Circus when a bank of angry-looking grey cloud coalesced overhead and decided it had had enough.
An almighty peal of thunder rang out, which was as surprising as it was alarming because it was a decidedly chilly day. Here in Eng-er-land, we exclusively associate thunder with extreme heat, i.e. anything over 19 degrees cee. Shortly after the sound and fury came the payload: a short, but genuinely violent hail storm.
I hid under the auspices of John Lewis to let the weather do its thang when out of the store rushed several excited tourists, phones in hand, and started filming the downpour. They'd clearly never seen hail. And some of them appeared so amazed and befuddled by the experience that I can only conclude that they never even heard of it. Where on earth could you live to have not heard of all possible weather conditions, even the ones that don't attend in your locale? As Del Boy once rightly observed: I've got a pair of desert boots indoors, but you don't see me down The Sahara, do you?
I've just finished reading The Mayor of Casterbridge. I read quite a bit a Hardy in my youth. Everyone in England seems to do this. We read it under sufferance. I'm not sure why. I supposed because it so beloved of the public exams syllabus setters. His work is afforded a certain caché, therefore, like Dickens. I must say I quite enjoyed old MofC. It's a bit of a curate's egg, but I was genuinely affected by the incorrigible descent of the protagonist. Sad to witness.
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