I was floating in the Tyrrhenian sea pivoting on a sandcastle wedged under my head contemplating the futility of immortality and the meaninglessness of time. The waves on this beach must have come and gone and gone and come since life on earth began. Round about the last time Leeds won a major trophy. After an hour I opened my eyes and 3 italians were staring down at me looking concerned “E morto? Che cosa? Is he dead? Oh, is he dead”. Leaping to my feet to reassure them I failed to realise that after an hour laying in drifting sand most of it will accumulate in your trunks. They fell to my knees clearing the beach quicker than the landing at Anzio by the Gordon Highlanders. I tried to run across the sand but it was so hot it burnt my feet. I tried to get to the tarmac road..but the tarmac was so hot the soles of my feet almost glued me to the boardwalk turning me into one of those permanently fossilised Pompeii statues that turn out to actually be people….

I’ve brought many groups to Italy. Priverno is our most successful twinning. Close to Anzio and Monte Cassino, Rome and Naples, Vesuvius and Sorrento, it’s been the ideal place for students meeting students, Choirs meeting Choirs, footballers meeting footballers  and tourists being dragged round the historic landmarks until they cry ‘please Bri no more! We know Fascism’s bad, we get it!’ . But this time was different. It was incredibly hot. Hotter than ever. The hottest. And likely to get hotter if we believe that man made global warming is behind all this. I listen to science and whilst it’s a natural process of the Earth periodically cooling and heating, mankind’s actions have accelerated that natural process faster than we can comfortably cope with.

Fires

There are forest fires out of control in Canada sending a pall of smoke over Connecticutt, which conversely has seen it’s wettest July in years while the Western US states are in a drought alert. In France  dehydration is the main cause of strokes and in La Ciotat where temperatues, normally in their mid 30’s have now topped 40 and where the Mayor has had to redesignate the beach 3 times due to rising sea levels.

Of course right wingers will try to play the populist card to make you think it’s not really a problem (so the oil companies can continue to make billions) but these days less and less people are being fooled by the ‘Net Stupid Zero’ claims of Nigel ‘stupid’ Farage and Richard ‘daft as a brush’ Tice. Even the Tories are saying it – but then again they’ve just let a convicted Nazi stand for Somerset Council for them so their credibility ratings are dropping faster than my beachwear.

Man does and has affected the environment. Where I’m sat now was a mosquito ridden swamp until the 1930s (no I’m not back in Sedgemoor) but people drained it, reclaimed it and built on it. Then we put industry on it. Mankind has changed the world we live in since we had the globalised power inherent in capitalism to do just that. Some fossil fuels burning, some deforestation, some nitro fertilisers and some industrial emissions , ok….but do that on a massive global scale with the only motive being short term greed, you’re certainly not considering the planet you’re leaving behind for your kids. And their kids. And their AI generated robo spawn who can only live off one drop of irradiated sump-water a week.

Rehab

I took the group up Monte Cassino -pretty much like the heroic Polish regiment that finally scaled the heights to defeat the German paratroopers holding the rubble of the monastery – except we drove a bus up there. I sat by the gravesides at the Polish cemetery. Beautifully kept. I wondered if this was the world they’d fought for? Then again they did have an actual bear called Wojcek with them who was trained to carry live ammunition shells for them. The battle here lasted 6 months and saw nearly 100,000 killed, and three times that many wounded. One was Gunner Spike Milligan, the famous comedy writer. He was taken out of the front line for rehab in Sorrento. I thought I’d very likely shoot my own foot off if that was an option.

When Milligan was here in the Spring of 1944 well, that was the last time Vesuvius erupted. I’m not saying it was his fault. But I am staring at it today and noticing how, regardless of the danger, housing now reaches up the actual side of the actual volcano. There was an earthquake here a couple of days ago. Are we learning anything here or has the clock already ticked past midnight and we’re just waiting for the bright fiery dawn……..