WHAT does the holiday paradise nation of The Maldives have in common with New Brighton and Hoylake? Apart from beaches, that is…
Well, alarmingly, all three places are at great risk of disappearing under the sea if global warming and environmental degradation continue as fast as all the experts have this week been warning they will.
The sea defences along New Brighton’s promenades will be about as useful as a chocolate fireguard in a blaze if the briny continues to rise as the polar icecaps melt away.
And low-lying Liverpool city centre could also disappear. Where once you shopped for cheap tat in Church Street could, before the century is over, be part of Davy Jones’s Locker.

Hmmm. What can be done? Well, if would-be world saviour Tony Blair is to be believed we all need to pay more tax on the types of goods, travel and trade which produce pollution.
Also, he thinks it will help if politicians such as him do more flying around the globe, grandstanding on green issues.
Actually, I’m pessimistic on this subject. With India and China emerging as industrial and consumerist giants, the problem is going to get worse before it gets better.
No nation is going to want to put itself at a competitive disadvantage by restraining its output with punitive green taxes and Draconian anti-pollution rules.
Nor can we rely on the United Nations to do anything positive. It has been fatally weakened by bitter division, political correctness and corruption.
The sooner the UN folds up its tent and disappears up its own fundament the quicker real dialogue on what needs to be done about the environment can take place. That’s if we haven’t all been blown to kingdom come or plunged into civil war and untold misery by Islamist terrorism first.
Now, a good columnist, whenever he paints such a grim scenario, should always point to a solution or remedy, but really the world situation is so grave I feel that’s beyond me just now.
I can tell you where we should start, however…
We should start by getting down on our knees and begging God for help.
Oh, titter ye not, as the great 20th century philosopher Frankie Howerd was apt to admonish. I mean it!
As I pointed out in the previous posting, God is very much back on the agenda and in the news.
The fast-degrading natural environment, our world, was created by God and he gave men (and women) dominion over it.
Presumably, he has spent the long millennia watching us mess it up.
So if we want to put things right, a good place to start would be by asking the Master Architect of the Universe for help.

TALKING of beaches, as I was at the beginning of this posting, I cycled from New Brighton along the front to Wallasey Beach (or Harrison Drive Beach, as some people insist on calling it) on Sunday afternoon.
It is a very good beach, actually, but you hardly ever see anyone swimming here ... because this vast beach is overrun by lazy, dirty dog owners.
Instead of taking the dog for a walk in the countryside and parks, most folks just load their mutts into the car, drive to the beach, and then let the creature out to have a crap on the sands.
So many dogs can be seen dumping on Wallasey Beach it is truly unpleasant to witness. I’d say most dog owners do at least scoop up the poop and dispose of it, but a sizeable minority don’t bother.
When I was there on Sunday, I saw a middle-aged women let her dog crap and not pick it up. All she did was lazily scoop a bit of sand over the turds. She did that with the tip of a tennis bat, which is not a very efficient utensil for such a task.
This dirty woman’s behaviour outraged me and she nearly felt the sharp edge of my tongue over the matter, I can tell you.
The woman was not alone with her dog on the beach. Another person was there. Couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman.
Let us assume that this third person was an hermaphrodite in an anorak. Whatever, he/she was, she did nothing to signify disapproval of her friend’s anti-social behaviour.
I mean what if later in the day some little kid was out on the beach, scooping up sand for a sandcastle, only to dig up a load of half-buried dog-pooh?

ANYWAY, something more tasteful now… I’m going to be reading from my poetry again at the Recklessly Hellbent gig at the Ginny (the Little Brighton pub) on Rake Lane, New Brighton, on Tuesday (31 Oct) evening at about nine o’clock.
I read a couple of my bitter and twisted verses there last week and they seemed to go down well.
Even if you don’t care for poetry, it is a good night out because Recklessly Hellbent are so very good and they always invite some interesting guest musicians.
I think Dr Gyggle, New Brighton’s famous mind doctor, will be playing there this week.

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit