Wolf Winship

The recent flash flood on the Nepal Tibet border has been devastating, with the death toll now over a thousand. In addition, there are  injured people needing rescue and urgent medical aid. Then there are still the missing. Destruction of buildings and homes is all around and clearly visible from the air. No doubt you will have seen the pictures and news reels. They call it a flood but it seems  there's more mud than water.  This flood is another natural disaster just this year (2026). So far there have been heatwaves, tornadoes, storms and wild fires. And we are not yet even into autumn! To be honest, at the back of my mind I did expect flooding to follow - but not till winter and nothing like this! Certainly not in that part of the world.  Unfortunately, this Nepal flash flood was  unpredicted. No one expected it, which is why the death toll is high. People were going about their day as planned. For some sadly, it was to be their last day. However there are go...

  Prince Harry and wife, Megan announced they are going to return to the UK with their two young children. The British newspapers are full of this breaking news today.  For those of you who happened to be living under a rock at the time, here's a quick background recap to this story: In 2020 (the same year as the Covid pandemic), Harry more or less exiled himself and his family from Great Britain. It was ultimately his decision though he may say he was 'pushed'. We will never know. We weren't in the room at the time and the Royal family is quite rightly entitled to their privacy.  I, for one, felt sorry for the Queen. She was so elderly and to have to deal with the bombshell dropped by Harry - that he wanted to be only a part-time working Royal... It was bad all around. Bad for the Queen, bad for the family and bad for the whole country. These sorts of things rock the stability of the Royal establishment as well the UK. We were indeed shocked by it, as people were acros...

 I am glad and somewhat relieved that Andy Burnham visited the awful fires in Stourbridge, West Midlands recently. He described Britain as a "tinder-box" right now and I attest to that: it is. I have never seen it like this. Every field is so dry! It is no wonder things are catching fire so easily.  That is how the fire in Stourbridge occurred, I believe. Initially it started on an open grassy area. The fire went on to catch the dry grass on a golf course. It rapidly spread from there to a collection of inhabited houses. In total, nineteen - Nineteen - houses were completely gutted by the fire. The figure 19 is worth saying more than once in my opinion. It's a lot of properties and it is shocking. Eighteen other properties have also been damaged.  It is a massive tragedy in terms of damage and destruction. Thank goodness no body died! However, six people were injured, three of them were from the fire services. Fortunately, no one had serious injuries. For all this and Bur...

So Nigel Farage has won the Clacton by-election again which was triggered by him in the first place. Let me remind everyone he resigned as MP for Clacton because of the scrutiny over the £5 million given to him by the crypto business man in Thailand, Christopher Harborne.  Nigel claims that money was for his personal security... Not for any political reasons. However, the standards commissioner will have to decide whether he has breached parliamentary rules or not. It means he will be scrutinised about the £5m anyway. Which means his resignation, the by-election et al, was for nothing after all. What a waste of time! Poor Nige. He must be quietly seething over his pint in a dark corner of a pub somewhere.  But it has to be done. Parliamentary rules are very strict. It is one of the things that makes this great nation what it is. And we're proud of that. If he is found to have broken the rules then in very simple terms, the whole process will start again; Farage will have to st...

  I had never seen a partial solar eclipse in my life before - let alone a full one. Then yesterday for the first time, I saw a 96% solar eclipse and it's made my year. Really. I just happened to be here in West England; right place, right time. Lucky me. And it was spectacular. I was bowled over.  However, at the end of the most beautiful and wondrous day of probably my whole life (to date), a couple of older guys I was with told me they were actually "disappointed". They actually used that word: Disappointed. Their word not mine. I was shocked, I couldn't believe it. "Why??" I asked. Turns out they'd seen the solar eclipse in 1999. "It was way better," they said. I must say, I was a bit miffed by that. I mean, come on guys, you're not judging a light show or a firework display!!  1999. Some of us weren't even alive back then. Here, I have to interject with an existentialism moment. I mean, to think that all of life and the universe wa...

I have written about the recent hot spell of weather in UK and Europe. I know a lot of people are still affected by the heatwave and even wildfires. You have my sympathy. As do the farmers, whom I feel for the most.  But in my part of England we have had cloud and even rain for a couple of days now. I tell you: it's delicious.  So please excuse me while I enjoy it for a bit longer and bask in the joy of taking a long walk in the cool of the afternoon. It's a pleasure to feel the wet of the spattering rain on my bare arms and face. It's also refreshing and freeing to not have to wear sunglasses or a hat or even sun protector cream.  It isn't a down pour but rather a soft gentle wispy on-going rain - the kind that regularly falls in Ireland and the lovely locals stand around  outside in it, chatting to one another without a care in the the world.  I'm enjoying this weather change now, while I can, because I suspect it is but a brief interlude and we will soon enou...