STAGE 3

Sporadic conversations with neighbours on the allotment about last week's brutal heat wave - inadequate term - reminded me of something.  I've remembered what.

In  the apocaplyptic science fictions stories I devoured as a kid - John Whyndam's The Kraken Wakes, John Christopher's The Death of Grass and The World in Winter, for example - there were four stages to  whatever it was that was going to end  Life As We Know it.

At first, only the maverick boffin sees what's coming, no one pays any attention. Stage 2: the Powers That Be accept what he says, but are able to discguise what is happening and reassure a gullible public. Stage 3: dawning realisation by Ordinary People of what is happening - but it is still contained, normal life continues, there's no panic as yet and people still plan their lives as before.

We're at Stage 3, now. That's what happened last week.  Ordinary people now know that a quite unprecedented, incredible change is coming that threatens everything, in ways they still cant imagine - but still they jet off the Spain 'to get some sun', they grumble about politicians and wonder how to meet their gas bills....

Stage 4?  Well: you know what stage 4 is.  Don't you.