Self-isolated.
Phone off since 04h15, just after getting on to my Japanese mattress on the floor: king-size, compacthard, soothing grey, in the corner of the room.
Coccooned behind rain-spattered windows; I'll miss this in the long, parched summer of avoiding the spray-tan beaches. As the hair grows back on my calves no longer covered in skinny jeans, as my favourite white muddies to honey and feet get aired in slip slops or barefoot for a season.
Has been a day of sleep and deep silence. And books, real ones. William Burroughs, still. And googling Denton Welch but seeing and not liking my face in the horror-screen of my iPad. And the French press of Italian blend, strong, aromatic Arabica. On the floor amongst the treacle sugar and earthy jug half-filled with milk. Two percent.
One fly in the flat, fat like a raisin-tick but motor-propelled with silent-invisible wings: against an elephant-grey afternoon sky I'm intent on murder. Waiter, there's a (fat) fly in my soup... .
---
That was October, it's now the first day of 2016 and this week's heat has gnawed away at my mirth. I hide in the shade and position myself in a drafty passage. It's the hottest, bleakest summer that I've experienced thus far in Cape Town: a devastating nation-wide drought and soaring temperatures are put down to the current El Niño weather phenomenon, which is playing havoc with world weather systems, is bamed for a string of extreme weather events.
What freaks me is out is that this is, I believe, a mere taster of what's to come with our climate crisis 'future' as we idiotic human beings continue to miss the goals required to avoid dangerous climate change.
"Limiting the average global surface temperature increase of 2°C (3.6°F) over the pre-industrial average has, since the 1990s, been commonly regarded as an adequate means of avoiding dangerous climate change, in science and policy making. However, recent science has shown that the weather, environmental and social impacts of 2°C rise are much greater than the earlier science indicated, and that impacts for a 1°C rise are now expected to be as great as those previously assumed for a 2°C rise."
The average temperature of my existence has undoubtedly got hotter, also drier since I moved to this city in mid-2013. The canary in the cage has given up trying to warn us, is asking for water... No-one's listening.
Happy New Year.
---
That was October, it's now the first day of 2016 and this week's heat has gnawed away at my mirth. I hide in the shade and position myself in a drafty passage. It's the hottest, bleakest summer that I've experienced thus far in Cape Town: a devastating nation-wide drought and soaring temperatures are put down to the current El Niño weather phenomenon, which is playing havoc with world weather systems, is bamed for a string of extreme weather events.
What freaks me is out is that this is, I believe, a mere taster of what's to come with our climate crisis 'future' as we idiotic human beings continue to miss the goals required to avoid dangerous climate change.
"Limiting the average global surface temperature increase of 2°C (3.6°F) over the pre-industrial average has, since the 1990s, been commonly regarded as an adequate means of avoiding dangerous climate change, in science and policy making. However, recent science has shown that the weather, environmental and social impacts of 2°C rise are much greater than the earlier science indicated, and that impacts for a 1°C rise are now expected to be as great as those previously assumed for a 2°C rise."
The average temperature of my existence has undoubtedly got hotter, also drier since I moved to this city in mid-2013. The canary in the cage has given up trying to warn us, is asking for water... No-one's listening.
Happy New Year.
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