Flooded with wrong sort of news

SHORTLY before 6.30am yesterday, we had our second power cut of the night. It lasted only a few minutes and just disabled the clock radio.

I keep the thing on all night, so as to listen to the World Service when I can’t sleep. You hear some fascinating programmes that way.

I almost always wake around five to the shipping forecast on Radio 4. Then it’s the first news of the day.

Yesterday, the bulletin was all about the US presidential election.

I’ve had it up to here with saturation Trump and Biden. The BBC has a cast of thousands over there, reporting from every corner of the US. There wasn’t a word about the floods in Yorkshire, which is what I want to know about. The river a few hundred yards away has burst its banks and the Aire Valley is one long lake stretching for miles.

Rain of “biblical” proportions triggered 20 flood warnings by breakfast time. This is all we need on the eve of Lockdown Mark 2, with pubs closing and queues in the hissing rain outside supermarkets.

It goes to show the old Chinese proverb is true: If floods sweep away your cattle, your wife runs away with another man, and you are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness – it doesn’t mean to say your house can’t burn down.

Or, in my case, succumb to the waters tumbling down from the Dales. I’ve had a few near misses in the past. But looking out on tree debris on the road, it’s stopped raining. The sky is blue and cold, dry weather is forecast. Hallelujah!