My Column

I t seems poor Meghan Markle can do no good even when she tries to sneak away for a quick sunshine break to Ibiza with husband, Prince Harry and baby son, Archie.

Having both been very vocal about supporting the environment and diminishing the effects of carbon emissions, the young royals have been taken to task for their reliance on air travel. The Ibiza hop opened the floodgates to further criticism as the couple hired a private plane with a £20,000 price tag, to boot.

As the climate change debate continues to rage, those in the public eye with the most robust larynxes on the issue, need to think through their actions for fear of a public backlash. For the royals this is even more pertinent. Perhaps the duke and duchess can invest now in a right-on environmentally PC vessel, even an emission-free magic carpet, to avoid continued opprobrium.

Making a splash

Meanwhile, savvy 16-year-old Swedish environmental campaigner, Greta Thunberg and her PR team, have pulled off quite a publicity coup. Eschewing air travel, she has chosen to travel on a high tech, wind-powered yacht to New York and Chile, in order to attend a UN summit on global warming. The trip will take two weeks and doesn’t look as if it will be that comfortable a ride.

I take my hat off to Greta, as she certainly puts her money where her mouth is and is not leaving herself open to disapproval from her naysayers. It’s extraordinary how a young slip of a girl with no pretensions and a dry humour, has become a global icon for change. I wonder what she’ll be doing in a decade’s time and whether her influence will still be fierce and her followers loyal. Let’s hope so!

Wild weather

As friends in the UK moan and groan about the adverse weather hitting them, I admit to being short on sympathy.

Here in Majorca, temperatures have been so high that I have found myself fantasising about rain and storms. It’s okay if you’re on holiday but sitting at a computer with a noisy fan at one’s side and a sizzling sun grinning at the window, isn’t much fun.

So desperate am I for cooler climes that I have installed a tropical rainstorm soundtrack on my iPhone that helps to lull me to sleep in this sticky heat. And planning ahead, we’ve already decided to decamp to the wilds of Scotland next summer for a bit of blustery wind, howling gales and torrential rain. Ah, music to my ears.

Summer road zombies

I ’m not sure what happens to people’s brains in this current heat but in Soller at least, swathes of tourists seem to feel the need to wander in the middle of busy roads without a care in the world. Much as I understand that our narrow, cobbled pavements aren’t that comfortable for walking, surely it’s better than being run over?

Yesterday a British family with a young child in a pushchair narrowly missed being mown down by a fast scooter as it rumbled along one of the main streets. They were walking in the centre of the tarmac, seemingly oblivious to traffic and its evident dangers.

Luckily the bike braked in time but the family was understandably horribly spooked. In some shock, they migrated to the pavement, looking in a kind of wonderment at the cars speeding up and down as if they were a new creation. I call this holiday group the summer zombies. Perhaps it’s something in our water? Whatever the weather, I hope they’ll take the safer option the rest of their vacation, reminding themselves that only cats are supposed to have nine lives.

Boxing Clever

How I loved the news story about Iman Barlow, a 26-year-old female British boxing world champion, who with her middleweight boxer boyfriend, bravely thwarted a robbery here in Majorca.

Having witnessed English holidaymakers being attacked, the valiant pair jumped the two assailants as they made off on motorbikes and contained them until the local police arrived. They should be given a medal.

Tears and ferrets

The UK seems beset by violent crime lately. If it isn’t assaults by machete wielding nutters or terrorists in supermarkets, randomly picking off members of the public, it’s serious youth knife attacks in the Capital.

One story that caught my eye for its sheer bizarre nature has been the attack on a poor civil servant working at the Ministry of Housing. An individual had been approaching employees as they entered the building, asking about their role and nationality before he selected the hapless man and stabbed him.

Fortunately the victim will survive and the assailant was arrested but what baffled me was why the arrested man had taken a caged ferret with him to the crime scene, as well as a tear gas canister. The mind boggles.

As a lover of ferrets, I’m not at all happy that this kind of adverse publicity is giving the loveable little chaps a bad name. If criminals must pollute the streets of London in such a way, I hope they will desist from involving any more ferrets. At any rate, if the innocent ferret had been used for nefarious purposes, I trust the police would have refrained from an arrest!