Heat of the Moment

It hit 31°C here yesterday, 31.4°C according to the Chesham Metdesk weather station down by the tennis club. The garden thermometer on the shed said 37°C, I was inclined to disagree with it. It’s often inaccurate when the temperature is going up, on the way down it sems to get its act together and toe the line with regard to other sources, Chesham Metdesk included.

I brought out the dial thermometer from the front room, it’s a relic, an heirloom from my grandfather’s garden shed, well, not from his shed you understand but that’s where I first encountered it, many years ago. He told me that it was or had been, part of something from where he worked, which at the time was Cooper’s Aerosol filling plant in Berkhamsted, it was actually owned by the pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome then but had been Cooper, McDougall and Robertson for many years beforehand and everyone in Berko simply called it Coopers.

Anyway, the thermometer has a round “face” a bit like a clock, some 2½ inches in diameter and a 9-inch probe containing a thermocouple connected to the dial on the face. It must be old because it’s only marked in Farenheight and that it had some industrial use is evident in the fact that the dial goes from 50°F to 250°F, that’s 10°C to 121°C in modern centibobbles.

I lodged the thermometer on the side of the shed, out of direct sunlight and after a while it registered 86°F which equates to 30°C, I looked at the other, newer, thermometer which was also in the shade and it was still resolutely telling me that it was 37°C then I checked the Chesham Metdesk which said… 30°C. Well done little dial thermometer, not bad for an old ‘un, eh?

In other news, today, Monday 19th July, is “Freedom Day” in England,

On the TV news this morning there were scenes of youngsters, I say youngsters, young is a relative term here, younger than me at any rate, in a nightclub doing a countdown to midnight and then all going crazy. Of those interviewed, one young man, I think it was a man, said, “I’ve had my vaccines, we just want to have a good time, hun…”

Well yes hun, we all want to have fun, hun.

Then there was a young woman who said, “It’s a sigh of relief, after such a long time, just to have freedom.”

Freedom, yes, please consider yourself free to spread Coronavirus as much and in as many variations and mutations as you like. Throw away those masks, they never protected you anyway!

Then there was the Vaccines Minister saying in one breath, “It’s a highly infectious respiratory disease” and then reiterating the government’s line that people should just use their own discretion and common sense.

This from a populace that voted for Brexit and consistently returns the Conservatives to power.

And of course, the shiny new Health Minister tested positive for Covid and, after a short fight, he, the PM and the Chancellor all went into 10 days of isolation so we go into Freedom Day with three leading members of the government self-isolating.

You couldn’t make it up sometimes.

But the little dial thermometer, very impressed with that.