RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: What next? Storm Attila laying waste to Wales! Just why on earth did the Met Office decide to adopt a silly name for the first big storm of the season?
How many names beginning with A can you think of, off the top of your head? Let’s give it a go. Alexa, tell me some names starting with A.
Ann, Anne, Annie, Alan, Arthur, Albert, Andrew, Andy, Alec, Alex, Alexander, Alexandra, Anthony, Antonia, Amy, Amelia, Arthur, Aubrey, Audrey, Alice, Alison, Allison.
Alf, Alfie, Alfred, Adam, Aaron, Arron, Aidan, Adrian, Andrea, Annabelle, Austin, Arnold, Abigail, Amanda, Amber, Adele, Agatha, Angela, Angie . . .
Plenty there to be going on with. So why on earth did the Met Office decide to adopt the name ‘Atiyah’ for the first big storm of the season?
Why on earth did the Met Office decide to adopt the name ‘Atiyah’ for the first big storm of the season?
Have you ever met anyone called Atiyah? Me, neither. I’m not even sure how you pronounce it. Is it Att-ee-yah? Or Att-eye-yah? Your guess is as good as mine. I heard it pronounced both ways on the wireless yesterday.
You say Att-ee-yah and I say Att-eye-yah! Let’s call the whole thing off.
Can you imagine the Met Office meeting which came up with it . . .
OK, listen up, everyone. This meeting has been convened to compile a list of approved names for storms. Let’s start with A and take it from there. Any suggestions?
Alan?
BOR-ING. Too white, too male.
Annabelle?
It’s a storm, not a night club.
Andrew?
You’re kidding. We’d have #MeToo all over us. Anyway, the Yanks have already had a Hurricane Andrew. Laid waste to Miami in the Nineties. Let’s think outside the box, people.
Adolf?
Seriously?
How about Angie? I’ve always loved that song. Angie, Ayyyangeeee . . .
Nah.
Attila?
As in Attila the Hun?
Waves crash against the North East coast of England as Storm Atiyah makes its way through the UK
Just a thought, boss.
No, I like it. We’re on the right track here. We’ve got to get away from traditional Anglo-Saxon names and start reflecting our rich, diverse, multicultural society.
Abdul?
That’s more like it.
Ayatollah?
Now we’re sucking diesel.
Al-Baghdadi?
I don’t think so.
Al-Qaeda?
I’m not sure we’re ready for Storm Al-Qaeda. Might cause unnecessary panic, a bit like War Of The Worlds. ‘Al-Qaeda swept through the West Country overnight, leaving a trail of destruction . . .’
What about Atiyah?
At-what?
Atiyah.
What does that mean?
It’s Arabic for ‘Gift from God’.
Male or female?
Search me, guv.
Even better. That’ll keep the trans lobby happy, too. So we’re agreed. Atiyah, it is. Right-o, what about B?
Babar?
Ba, Ba, Ba, Ba, Barbara Ann.
Not the Beach Boys, guv. Babar.
Like the Barber of Seville?
No, like the elephant. It means ‘tiger’ in Urdu . . .
What possessed the Met Office to give a storm an Arabic name? This is Britain, not Saudi Arabia. You can’t imagine the Saudis calling a sandstorm ‘Doris’.
Come to think of it, Atiyah would be perfect for a Desert Storm.
Other names on the list announced on Friday include Gerda, Samir, Noah and Piet.
Why? Gerda is a Scandinavian name meaning ‘guardian, peace, fertility’. Samir is derived from a Sanskrit word for ‘gust of wind or gentle breeze’, which may come as little comfort when Storm Samir is ripping your roof off and flooding your front room.
Presumably Noah is to be deployed in the event of a flood of Biblical proportions.
And why Piet, not Pete?
I can only assume that the Met Office, like every other public body in Britain, is suffering from some kind of cultural cringe and feels it necessary to display its ‘woke’ credentials at every available opportunity. Why else would it choose unusual foreign names for severe weather systems?
Didn’t anyone at the Met Office stop for a minute to consider that most people would find the name confusing, to say the least?
When I overheard a newsreader talking about ‘Storm Atiyah’, I initially took no notice, assuming it was something to do with the Middle East or Singapore.
It was only when power cuts in Wales were mentioned that I realised it was closer to home.
Look, this isn’t meant as a slight on anyone called Atiyah, although there can’t be many living in Britain. The only one I could find on the internet is a British-Lebanese mathematician, Sir Michael Atiyah. Even then, Atiyah is his surname, not his first name.
I’m sure he’s flattered to discover he’s sharing it with a storm.
Frankly, I haven’t the faintest idea why the Met Office has started giving winter storms fancy names. We managed quite well without them until a couple of years ago.
It’s just another irritating import from the U.S., like Black Friday, prom nights and over-the-top Halloween celebrations.
At least the Americans have serious, heavy duty, 150mph, batten-down-the-hatches hurricanes. Compared to the original Hurricane Andrew and Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, our storms are generally something of a damp squib.
The last proper one was in 1987 — Hurricane Fish, we could have called it, after the hapless BBC weatherman who told us not to panic as ‘it won’t happen’.
Still, it allows the Met Office to wallow in self-aggrandisement. They say naming storms raises the public’s ‘awareness’ of severe weather. So that’s all right, then.
But if ‘raising awareness’ really is the raison d’etre, in future it would make sense to use a more familiar name which everyone could understand.
How about Hurricane Higgins?
When the Tories announced plans for elected police commissioners, I thought: what a great idea. At last, the Old Bill will be held accountable and have to respond to the public’s priorities.
Maybe they’ll start taking burglary seriously again, even agree to patrol the streets once in a while.
It was a vain hope. With a few honourable exceptions, police commissioners have been an expensive, ineffective irrelevance. The sooner they’re abolished, the better.
They’ve managed to find whole new ways of wasting taxpayers’ money on promoting themselves. It has just been revealed that they have frittered away £250,000 on everything from lip balm to cuddly toys.
When the Tories announced plans for elected police commissioners, I thought: what a great idea. (Stock image)
Hampshire blew £51,452 on stress balls and key-ring torches. Devon and Cornwall spent the thick end of 27 grand on 2,000 tins of mints, 1,000 toothbrush sets and 9,000 ‘glitterbugs’ — whatever they are.
Sussex’s commissioner bought 1,000 pairs of branded sunglasses. Avon and Somerset splashed out on a job lot of Tardis police box models.
And, best of all, using the ubiquitous excuse of ‘raising awareness’, Nottinghamshire bought a shedload of furry teddy bears dressed as coppers.
Cuddly toy, cuddly toy! Didn’t they do well!
There’s another one I don’t know whether to file under Mind How You Go or You Couldn’t Make It Up.
Some hotels do ‘ave’ em
I’m reminded of the episode of Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em in which Frank and Betty go on a second honeymoon
Hotels are used to customers nicking dressing gowns and toiletries. Some guests have even made off with televisions, Teasmades and all-singing, all-dancing shower heads. But mattresses have always been safe — until now.
Five-star hotels report that luxury mattresses, with sophisticated heating and cooling systems, are the latest target for thieves.
Hotels with lifts which go straight down to underground car parks are vulnerable. There may, however, be a different explanation. I’m reminded of the episode of Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em in which Frank and Betty go on a second honeymoon.
Things start to unravel when Frank attempts to push two single beds together. Inevitably, he ends up inadvertently wrecking the room.
Don’t worry, he reassures a horrified Betty, this has happened before, when he was staying in a hotel with his mother.
‘We were up all night flushing the mattress down the toilet.’
The madness of Nigel Farage fielding candidates against Brexiteer Tories has been brought home to me in my own North London constituency, Enfield Southgate.
Conservative David Burrowes, a committed Leaver, is attempting to win back from Labour the marginal seat Mother Theresa cost him in 2017.
His task is being made more difficult by the Brexit Party candidate Parag Shah.
I’m sure Mr Shah is one of the good guys, but even if he only receives a couple of thousand votes, it could let Labour back in. I supported the Brexit Party in the EU elections, but I’ll be voting Burrowes on Thursday.
As I wrote last week, the only way to Get Brexit Done is by voting Tory.
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