Melbourne Airport – 46 C at 2:26 pm

I don’t think it got anywhere near 46 C at Warrandyte, but it was bloody hot nonetheless. Coldstream hit 43.8 C and I think Warrandyte would have been similar.

Feels almost blase saying we only reached 43.8. This is a temperature graph from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology:

I grew up in that middle bit where there are a couple of hot spikes but mostly cool to cold troughs. I remember what summers were like back then. We lived in a solid brick, Federation Edwardian house that stayed cool most of the time. We didn’t even own a fan. Back then, the priority was staying warm in winter.

Now…43.8 C, air-conditioning and multiple fans and the inside temperature of the house stayed at 30 C all day. Bearable, but only because we were lucky and only lost power for about 10 minutes.

Is this ‘proof’ of Climate Change? Or is it just weather? When I look at that graph I can’t help thinking we’re experiencing the predicted, climate change extremes already, and that scares me. If this one day was so bad, how will we cope with even worse days?

And yes, there are still those who believe that all of climate change is just some kind of global conspiracy. I’ve been arguing with a few on Twitter today. But you can’t really have a ‘meeting of minds’ when the other person attempts to use personal put downs to win the argument.

Logic doesn’t work with people like that. Facts don’t either. Yelling and name calling might, but I was brought up to believe that emotive arguments are shameful and weak. That people who use them are shameful and weak.

So I walked away with my integrity intact but a truly bad taste in my mouth. Not because I didn’t ‘win’, but because I couldn’t change things for the better.

When did facts and logic become such blunt tools?

You’d think I’d know better. My Mum was an emotive arguer and it used to drive me crazy. I guess the truth is I never found a way to discuss anything with her, not without it becoming a huge screaming match. Apparently, I still don’t know how to do it. The only difference is that I’m 66 instead of 16, and I don’t yell and scream any more…

Apologies for the rant. I’m hot, tired and angry. 😦

Meeks

 

Would anyone like to contribute to a chain story?

Many years ago, I was part of a threesome -wink- of friends who set out to see if we could write a progressive story, and no, there was no sex in it. Sorry.

Every night we’d take it in turns to write, and email, an installment of the story to each other, with the only rule being that each installment had to ‘follow on’ somehow from the previous one.

The experiment was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of work and eventually fizzled out. 😦

A few years later I tried a similar thing with just one email buddy. Again, it was fun but we never quite finished the story. Then today, I discovered a chain story thread on Goodreads! If you belong to Goodreads you can find the thread here :

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1985946-chain-story?comment=107112496&page=3#comment_107112496

Anyway…. the Goodreads thread reminded me of the lack of creative fiction in my life at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly enjoying the physicality of landscaping, and I really don’t have the energy for full on creative writing, but I do miss the whole storytelling side of things…

Gah! Enough beating about the bush – would anyone like to join me in writing a chain story?

At this point, I envisage comments as being the medium, and I’m tossing up the idea of imposing a :

1.  10 word installment minimum, and

2.   A maximum of 100 words.

The rationale for the maximum is that I don’t want the storytelling to become a big, angsty chore. By the same token, however, I do harbour a secret hope that between us we may come up with something worth reading. 😀

So, what do you think? Does the idea need more work? Is it too much work? Is it too much commitment? Or is the whole thing just a huge yawn?

cheers

Meeks