Great news! Someone knows how to solve the problem of man-made climate change! And who is this genius, this saviour? Not the United Nations, not the IPCC, not George Monbiot, not a scientist at all, but a humble politician. A British politician, what's more. It's David Millipede: he's going to sort the whole thing out, and then we can all stop worrying about it. Hooray!
Reported on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 - and it must be true, because this is Radio 4, right? - the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is in China. His purpose?
According to the BBC reporter shadowing Millipede and speaking in suitably hushed and reverent tones, he's going "to stop climate change".
Well, thank goodness. At last someone knows what to do, and is intent on doing it. What a relief.
Of course, on sober reflection it does seem he's taking on quite a mammoth task for just one man. He's going to calm down the rampant sun, restore the hole in the ozone layer, re-freeze the entire Arctic, shore up the Greenland glaciers, patch together the Antarctic pack-ice, redirect the Gulf Stream, save the poor polar-bears, get the Pope to canonise The Blessed Al Gore … and presumably rest on the seventh day.
So just who does Millipede think he is? God? Or for that matter who does the BBC think he is?
How is he going to achieve this miracle? Is he going to slip into a phone box, put his pants on over his trousers and emerge to stare down the approaching storm grim-mouthed, with little red rays coming out of his eyes?
Or perhaps he'll step onto the surface of the water and walk across the Arctic Ocean, freezing everything in his path? Or dash the surface with his staff, making the waters draw back so he can walk across dry-shod?
Not Millipede, sadly, but the GOS on his hols
Or - rather more likely - will he lug an old armchair down the beach at Brighton and sit at the water's edge, daring the tide to rise?
Or perhaps he'll come down the mountain bearing stone tablets telling us what to do? … oh no, that's Al Gore …
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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