England under water

by Chris Bertram on July 24, 2007

The Guardian has “a photo gallery”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/gallery/2007/jul/23/flooding?picture=330241388 of the floods. (And Chris Brooke “has some pictures of Oxford”:http://virtualstoa.net/2007/07/23/oxford-floods/ .) The excellent Bottle Rockets have their song “Get Down River” available for “download”:http://www.bottlerocketsmusic.com/2007/06/free-download-get-down-river.html from their website.

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United-Kingdom » Blog Archive » Comment on England under water by stuart
07.25.07 at 9:52 am

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1

ejh 07.24.07 at 8:32 am

I lived in Oxford 1983-99 and some small amount of flooding wasn’t unusual: Botley Road, Osney, areas off the Abingdon Road. I can remember trying to get to the Isis Tavern once, probably 1998, wading along the towpath to get there and finding the floor awash when it was there (though they were still open and still serving). I always regretted not taking a camera, since the landscape, if you can call it that, was extraordinary: south of Iffley Lock it was like someone had turned it into a reservoir. All the field were covered in water and only the trees and hedges poked out above it.

Nothing as dramatic as the pictures of Tewkesbury cowering on the hill, though.

My girlfriend’s relatives are in Radley, which is right by the river. They’re expecting to avoid being evacuated (they’re not at the bottom of the village) but it’s not out of the question.

Incidentally, seeing as Sandford is where the BBC says it is, why do the Guardian think it’s near Reading? Has it been washed downstream?

2

stuart 07.24.07 at 12:05 pm

It’s better to be reading about this on the news that being present for it – back in 2000 I was living in Shrewsbury and basically ended up living on an island for a couple of days while the water level went back down.

3

P O'Neill 07.24.07 at 1:59 pm

I was really surprised at the PM mentioning climate change so many times in his press conference. Is that being interpreted as blame-shifting or reflecting a consensus or something else?

4

I told you so. 07.24.07 at 6:52 pm

Didn’t somebody defile a pagan fertility symbol with a picture of Homer Simpson resulting in the pagans performing a rain dance?

Maybe you should leave the pagans alone in the future.

5

stuart 07.24.07 at 7:28 pm

I was really surprised at the PM mentioning climate change so many times in his press conference. Is that being interpreted as blame-shifting or reflecting a consensus or something else?

Certainly in the summer I don’t think there is any significant consensus on the UK weather – the winters will tend to be warmer and wetter. The current weather is based on the path of the jet stream, but that has always been variable and there is no definitive modelling or trend analysis for it in the future.

6

The Constructivist 07.24.07 at 8:37 pm

Not yet as bad as Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy gets–is it the second one where England is entirely underwater?

7

vivian 07.25.07 at 12:27 am

Thanks Chris, I appreciate the opportunity to hear news about the CT regulars, and people I might know in person or by their writing. Sort of like after 7/7/05 on various sites. How are you all faring? Sounds like Bristol is safe, at least until the next spring tide, yes? Anything we can do from far away to help?

8

engels 07.25.07 at 2:10 am

Anything we can do from far away to help?

Ratify Kyoto!

9

ejh 07.25.07 at 10:35 am

According to this the Environment Agency is represented by Robert Runcie.

I don’t suppose that’s a relation of the late Archbishop of Canterbury?

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