{"id":2259,"date":"2024-12-12T15:47:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T15:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2259"},"modified":"2024-12-12T15:47:32","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T15:47:32","slug":"regrettably-my-fellow-welsh-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/regrettably-my-fellow-welsh-citizens\/2259\/","title":{"rendered":"REGRETTABLY MY FELLOW WELSH CITIZENS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Mum\u2019s got pneumonia. You should come today.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Right,\u2019 Jeff said, \u2018right.\u2019 He put the phone down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Pneumonia? Your sister\u2019s a nurse, Jeff. She\u2019s telling you something.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I can\u2019t leave here now!… What\u2019s she telling me, Steph?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Frail, old, in a care home? She\u2019s saying get there before your mum goes.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Christ! How can I\u2026?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looked about him helplessly and put down the wet bucket he\u2019d been using to bale out the shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Just a yellow warning, minister. The Met should\u2019ve issued a red or amber.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u2018So we blame the Met Office? But, look, the Met\u2019s website says Storm Bert was well forecast in advance.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If I may clarify, minister. We blame others<\/em>. Natural Resources Wales, for instance, only issued a flood warning the day before the flood.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ah! Remiss, would you say?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Very. And the local council\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No no\u2026 mustn\u2019t blame them Thompson\u2026 same political party as ourselves.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018My fish and chip shop is ruined. It\u2019ll cost ten thousand to put it back together.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And do you have insurance?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The callow BBC Wales interviewer, the same narrow-trousered sharp-blue suit and long-pointed shoes as the other fellows in the newsroom, thrust his microphone close to Mr Adams\u2019 mouth as though it were one of his own tempting chips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nobody in the high street does. We can\u2019t get it, see. Storm Dennis four years ago stopped that.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What\u2019s the damage?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The burner\u2019s copped it. That\u2019s five grand. See the mud. Mind you don\u2019t step in it.\u2019 A pair of neatly polished pointed shoes took careful steps back. \u2018The high street\u2019s caked in the stuff. You got smashed windows too, walls, floors. It\u2019ll take me weeks to get back on my feet and\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So, you\u2019re not giving up?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No. If <\/em>we\u2019re given insurance cover and flood defences.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And who do you think should give this?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The government.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister turned off the tv. The government<\/em>! That fellow had blamed the government, like everybody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Thompson come in here,\u2019 he roared into the intercom. \u2018Your blaming others stunt isn\u2019t working.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That chap\u2019s town is at a confluence of two rivers, minister. What\u2019s he expect? Wales gets masses of rain. Climate change in Wales means warmer, even wetter weather.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So I just say an act of God<\/em> and some of you will have to lump it?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We discreetly advance a certain inevitability about future climate outcomes.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(practising) <\/em>\u2018Regrettably, my fellow Welsh citizens, climate change means that protecting some homes from flooding isn\u2019t possible<\/em>. I can\u2019t say that, Thompson! I\u2019ll lose my seat at the next election!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim and Lisa Davies surveyed their ruined bookshop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018After Storm Dennis, Lisa, the talk was this was a once in fifty years event.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Do you regret coming here?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ve always wanted to run a bookshop. We\u2019ve got some lovely customers.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And the books can be replaced.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Give it another go?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Till the next monsoon.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Or longer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019re mad, aren\u2019t we?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hey, ho, the wind and the rain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The rain it raineth every day.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Mum\u2019s got pneumonia. You should come today.\u2019 \u2018Right,\u2019 Jeff said, \u2018right.\u2019 He put the phone down. \u2018Pneumonia? Your sister\u2019s a nurse, Jeff. She\u2019s telling you something.\u2019 \u2018I can\u2019t leave here now!… What\u2019s she telling me, Steph?\u2019 \u2018Frail, old, in a care home? She\u2019s saying get there before your mum goes.\u2019 \u2018Christ! How can I\u2026?\u2019 He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1129,1467],"tags":[1473,1346,12,1472,1456],"class_list":["post-2259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-dec-2024-regret","tag-citizens","tag-fellow","tag-my","tag-regrettably","tag-welsh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-Ar","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2262,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259\/revisions\/2262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}