WE Brits sometimes use unusual language when we talk about the weather. The Daily Mirror reports on a survey of 2,000 people to reveal the words and phrases most likely to be used.
These include ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’, ‘blowing a gale’ and ‘throwing it down’. Other popular phrases include ‘it’s the calm before the storm’, ‘the sun has got it’s hat on’ and ‘it’s absolutely Baltic’.
It also seems more than eight in 10 admit to a love of discussing the climate, with the average Brit spending the equivalent of more than six months of their life talking about the weather.
People in parts of West Cornwall have been reacting to what has been described as an ‘earthquake.’ The Daily Mirror says that British Geological Survey has confirmed the occurrence which is thought to have had a magnitude of two on the Richter Scale.
The newspaper reports people in Helston and Redruth claiming their houses shook amid a noise that sounded like a ‘sonic boom’. One said their windows were shaking after a “loud bang from beneath”. A woman took to social media and said: “Had a small earthquake in Cornwall. My beer is still standing so we are all good.”
There is good news in The Guardian for the common blue butterfly. The charity, Butterfly Conservation, claims that its numbers could boom in the UK thanks to recent spells of hot weather. Seemingly the July heatwave and Met Office forecasts for above-average temperatures in August might mean that the common blue has its “best ever summer”.
According to the charity, the butterfly has been struggling for the last 40 years, but common blue populations increased by 104% in the summer of 2018 compared with the previous year, thanks to warm weather.
Dr Zoe Randle, Butterfly Conservation’s senior surveys officer, said: “People should be able to spot these butterflies in national park areas as their caterpillars mainly feed on the wildflower and common bird’s-foot trefoil.”
It could also be a record year for the painted lady butterfly, which is covered in orange, brown and white markings.”
Still in Cornwall and an article in The Guardian says that a £5m footbridge restoring the lost crossing of Tintagel Castle is finally reopening to the public.
It means visitors will no longer have to climb 148 narrow, steep and often frustratingly busy steps to get round the popular tourist site. Instead they will cross a 68-metre bridge over a spectacular rocky chasm which separates two halves of the remains of the 13th-century castle.
The site attracts 250,000 visitors a year.
It is an expensive business, dying: The BBC highlights the difference in the cost of cremation at council run sites in the UK. Costs range from £392 to £960, and have risen by nearly a fifth since 2015.
The BBC analysed figures for adult cremations, collected by charity The Cremation Society, and obtained the latest data for 183 council-run crematoria in the UK and Channel Islands for the past five years. The most expensive council-owned crematorium was in Milton Keynes, which currently charges £960 as a basic fee.
Reference list:
- The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk)
- The Daily Mirror (www.mirror.co.uk)
- The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)