Playing Where’s Wally? as we sink in the floods

Not the mud and the flood of the trenches for him. He’s staying well away.

Exactly why has been something of a mystery. Missing in action for Storm Ciara. Missing in action for Storm Dennis.

Missing in action during this month’s floods which have wreaked havoc and misery up and down the country.

It might be that Boris has not noticed the flooding. After all, so far as I can tell, the River Thames has not flooded, Westminster is dry, and as London is not flooded he might think it’s not happening and is all a Trump-style “hoax” or fake news.

Or he could have noticed that communities have been going under, but thinks there is nothing to be gained by a Prime Minister going along in a camera-friendly safety helmet and yellow jacket accompanied by a host of minders and television crews just to be seen to be seen being seen.

For politicians there is the added risk of being asked awkward questions by the best interviewers in the business, the general public.

“Oi, Boris, when are we going to get decent flood defences?” For instance. Or: “You come here for a photo opportunity, but what are you actually doing, Prime Minister?”

The response that he’s been busy in London holding top-level meetings with oh-so-important people to talk about it might not go down very well out in the flooded field.

Instead of stayaway Boris, Environment Secretary George Eustice was delegated on Thursday to make the trip to Shropshire. And he wasn’t first choice either, as floods minister Rebecca Pow had to call off due to illness.

Johnson’s invisibility is doubly mysterious because he did visit flood-hit Stainforth, in Yorkshire, in November. He was asked some awkward questions by awkward (that is, normal) Yorkshire people. And coincidentally it all came during a general election campaign.

The experience may have left him mentally scarred.

David Cameron was famously and memorably pictured in a swimming costume. So, for that matter, was Winston Churchill. Then we have Boris Johnson. Spot the odd one out.

Now I wouldn’t suggest for a moment that Boris Johnson suffers from hydrophobia, but for some reason, on the evidence so far, BoJo does not have an affinity for water.

Storm Jorge is predicted to hit this weekend, so there could be one more opportunity for the Prime Minister to go and see what’s happening for himself.

If he does, it will be too late. It will just look like he’s doing it because he’s had so much criticism for not doing it.

Which may well be true.

Conversion to digital radio falling flat

I got a digital radio for Christmas. I think we are all supposed to be getting digital radios, aren’t we?

With a multitude of multi-function buttons which lead you into a maze of menus, which can be followed using an LCD display which is literally the size of a postage stamp, it is capable and versatile, opening up a world of possibilities for audio enjoyment.

Throughout its two-month life, I have had some trouble performing the simple action of turning it on and off – hold the button down the wrong length of time and you’re in one of those mazy menus.

So you’ll not be surprised that I haven’t even attempted to change the channel. Not that the reception’s that hot anyway.

The LCD display is now flashing and the volume button doesn’t work, possibly because the batteries are flat.

I seek your advice on a dilemma. Should I risk getting back out the old tranny it replaced? Even though it might offend the person who gave me my new digital radio? (Important consideration – it was my wife).

Weinstein not alone

You would have thought that Harvey Weinstein was a rogue sexual predator who found his way into Hollywood.

Not a bit of it. He was Hollywood, part of a culture of sexual predation going back to the dawn of the movies.

For many powerful movie moguls, the euphemism was “the casting couch.”

You see films and programmes these days which carry an assurance along the lines that “no animals were harmed in making this movie.”

I wonder how many of the film classics we all enjoy could honestly have a tagline “no women were sexually exploited in making this film”.