Change in the Weather

.....Somethin's happenin' here. (John Fogerty)

The orange bush-fire skies of last week have gone.

Sunlight is glinting on the azure-blue ocean, birds are nesting, pelicans and seagulls are dive-bombing hapless beach fishermen, and next year's crop of melanomas are beginning to take the task of cell-division seriously.

The only noteworthy distractions in my panoramic field of vision at this time of year are the passing parade of healthy young bikini-clad women strolling languidly on the beach under clear blue skies, and the colourful spinnakers of millionaire's yachts sailing north to the Whitsunday Islands.

The invasion of the school-holiday tourists is in full spate.

Campers are relaxing on canvas chairs, getting happily inebriated and trying to come to terms with the unexpected congruence of expectations and reality. 

Our prime minister, who, in response to public outrage at his absence during the recent State of Emergency caused by the bushfires, the devastation of our National Parks and the tragic deaths of two volunteer firefighters from the Rural Fire Service, returned to Australia from a family holiday in Hawaii, clearly pissed off at having to cut short his holiday by one day, and delivered a tight-lipped reassurance that the recent unprecedented record-breaking heatwave had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anthropogenic climate change, and let us know that there is no need for the government to provide financial support to volunteers who had taken leave without pay from their jobs to fight the fires that threatened their communities, because they "want to be there".

Well. Isn't that a relief. Who would have thought.

(The lunatics are in charge of the asylum. We are all deeply and profoundly fucked.)

And in breaking news (12:53 Saturday 28 December 2019):
"Australia fires and weather: blazes out of control as heatwave expected to peak on New Year's Eve.