Odds and sods

People often ask me what the weather is like here in BC, and in the part of BC where I live, it's very much like the weather in the south of England. But the weather rules that I'm used to don't always apply.
In Britain, there are certain indicators where you can look at the sky and say with a fair degree of accuracy,
'Yep, it's going to be a scorcher,' or 'ah, it'll burn off later,' or 'think it's going to rain, look at those clouds,' or even,'there's a storm a-comin'.' That last one would be if you are inexplicably speaking with a Hicksville, American accent.

Here, I can look out and say to Kevin,
'It will deffo rain today,' and he'll say,
'Not necessarily,' and it won't. It's because of the mountains, they affect the weather, make it even more unpredictable than it already is, or they alter the rules or something.
Right now you'd think it was blowing up for a storm. It just has that whole 'blowing up for a storm' feel to it out there....and it won't.

Reports of the street party in Simmi's street are that it was 'awesome' and a good time was had by all. Austen told me there was another street party in the next one over too. Nowhere I have lived does celebrating quite like Pompey, sometimes you can't even work out what they're celebrating, or why there are fireworks, although if that's the case then there's a fair chance it's either football related or naval.

The World Cup is supposed to be fun - whilst of course being deadly serious. But there are a couple of things going on that are not at all in the spirit of things.
Firstly, the Dutch being made to take their clothes off all over the place. Simmi sent me this article about them having to take their Lederhosen off, no-one wants that, any nation who are brave enough to wear bloody Lederhosen should be allowed to keep 'em on and especially orange ones. Bloody corporate sponsorship. Apparently last week they were made to take off their T-shirts saying 'We want our bicycles back,' referring to the Germans having confiscated them during the war. If Brits had been involved, within two hours they'd all have been wearing counter-T-shirts saying, 'Look in your bloody canals mate.'

The other appalling World Cup story is about the trafficking of prostitutes. Now I had blogged some time ago about a brothel that was getting ready for the influx of footie fans, but it seems that it didn't stop there.
Dontcha just love the lame idea that if you educate drunken football fans, they will discriminate between women who have chosen the profession and those who have been brought in against their will?
I think this is part of a broader issue anyway about how women are still viewed and treated, but I'll save that for another day when I'm feeling particularly vituperative.

Tomorrow, since the education programmes at the Nature Park have now finished for the summer, we are going kayaking. This is an activity I'm not even sure I can spell, and I have certainly never done before, so...should be fun :) Actually, I think that may be a life rule I've discovered there - if you can't spell it you shouldn't do it/eat it/practise safe sex with it.