13.2.14 Weather

• Pictures of people struggling with bent umbrellas and trying to get them to their normal shape rather than inside out are simply proof that there are brainless twats on the loose.
• Julie Etchingham stands in a big puddle (or just in front of water, as though this 'staging' gives her some sort of extra credence), delivering her laboured news about how bad the floods are, and being generally quite smug and patronising at the same time.  Just why does Retchingham feel the need to stand outside in wellies, with a pained look on her face, while reading the news?
• Politicians are criticised for wandering about in wellies and hats and taking photo opportunities in flooded areas, by news reporters wandering about in wellies and hats while on camera.
• Reporters piss about in the water, wearing wellies which don't actually reach above the water level, defeating the object, while they waddle about for no good reason.
• A reporter stands in a gale, shouting like fuck about the gusts of up to 106mph - news which we just about get, as the sound quality is so poor that it's a struggle.  She just about manages to keep on her feet, while I wonder why she has to stand there and give us news of the fucking obvious.
• Some Gurkhas are shown moving sandbags and putting them in water against the wall of a house, to the delight of a bloke in wellies who shows the cameraman how wet his house is, inside and out.
• Lucy Verasamy flamboyantly waves a hand at the map of the UK while flirting and pouting news of more rain and wind, and she announced to me that a front is "barelling in" and that there are "batches of rain".  Meanwhile, on the local weather, Ross Hutchinson has stopped telling me about "pieces of murk" and is saying that the weather systems moving in from the west look "quite pretty" but that underneath them, things look "quite ugly". Quality weather forecasting still refuses to arrive in this country.
• Alistair Stewart simply annoys the fuck out of me and most sensible viewers.
• Cameron says "Money is no object" in dealing with the floods, but will of course regret it later - and doesn't actually mean it anyway. Meanwhile, this year's foreign aid budget has risen by 30% to £11 billion.  If these floods were in another country, there would be hundreds of millions available!  Not so much ironic as cunting pathetic!

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