The reality of the wildfires in South Birmingham is starting to sink in. Years ago there was a tweet (remember tweets?) saying:

“Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it.”

I’m not personally filming it yet but friends of mine are sharing wildfire footage from their friends' doorbell spycams in Druids Heath, a mile or so up the road and part of my MP’s constituency, so it’s only a matter of time.

I do remember some small patches of scorched grass around here a few years back when we had that 40 degree summer but that was more a curiosity. This is on a different scale and we’re probably only half-way through what I guess we’re going to have to start calling wildfire season.

While I was putting this issue to bed we got our national emergency alert along with the rest of England and Wales. My first thought was something major was happening and we’d need to take shelter or something. Turned out to be a request not to start fires, something that has been in the news for a while now.

Is that an emergency communication? I mean, probably not. Maybe it’s a sign of how hard it to get basic information to people these days. You can’t just interrupt prime time TV shows anymore. And most people just don’t have the capacity to keep on top of what they’re supposed to be doing, especially in a time of change.

I wonder what the opt-out rate is like.

How can we talk about this extreme weather now that it’s a battleground in the culture wars?

Noted for the how the climate has changed in its fundamental nature in the UK.

Even more than the heat, summer drought and winter floods, its key feature has been the weather getting stuck in one state for months – a characteristic of harsh continental climates, rather than the changeable one around which our society has been built. So it’s possible that next summer will feature relentless rain, not drought, and that other seasons will continue to stall as well, damaging the economy, everyday life and public health.

One of life’s simple joys is explaining to someone who grew up on the continent and now lives in Britain why it is we’re so obsessed with talking about the weather. Because in Germany or wherever you get a seasonal change and it pretty much locks in for a few months, whereas we’re an island with winds coming from the arctic, the continent and the Atlantic all fighting for climate dominance. The weather here is a thing that changes daily and relatively unpredictably so of course we talk about it all the time.

But this year it hasn’t changed for at least two months. And, while I’m loath to make predictions, I’m anticipating a sudden switch to heavy rain, all of which will run off the rock-hard ground and cause flooding.

Martin Rowson’s cartoon reminded me that I voted in Nigel Farage’s first election, the 1994 Eastleigh by-election after the death of Stephen Milligan. I don’t pretend to remember him being on the ballot and I definitely didn’t vote for him. But I was part of that history, for my sins.

‘Bumbling, mumbling’ tidiers of our world: the unexpected superpowers of the common woodlouse

I’ve always had a liking for woodlice and enjoys finding them in my compost during the maturation phases. When I see them there I see trilobites going back hundreds of millions of years. The mundane stretching across cosmic scales.

Also nice to see they can help with toxic metal remediation by storing it in their bodies. (Presumably you then need to dispose of the bodies carefully?)

• Ze Frank’s True Facts: Flowers that screw flies — Smuttier than usual, and all the better for it. I was pondering if I could start showing these to the 10 year old but nah, maybe not yet. (Yes, there’s the educational versions' butt, sorry, the educational versions, but that kinda feels like stripping the point out of them.)
• Simon Gane: New Burning Sky designs — I loved Simon’s anarchist comics in the 90s and his artistic development through the 2000s so am always delighted when he posts a bunch of these beer labels on his blog.