IN the most recent Avengers movie, Sir August de Wynter hatches a diabolical plot to control the world’s weather, holding world leaders to ransom, threatening lethal consequences should they not accede to his nefarious demands.
Oh. Probably should have made clear that by “Avengers”, I don’t mean the hugely successful adaptations of the Marvel heroes, but the infamously bad 1998 movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman as John Steed and Emma Peel respectively, roles initially made famous by a dapper Patrick Macnee in his bowler hat, and the leather catsuit donning Diana Rigg in the cult British TV series of the same name.
The late Sean Connery played the evil mastermind de Wynter, whose apocalyptic ultimatum seems, in 2022, redundant – seeing as human behaviour is doing a perfectly good job of negatively effecting the world’s weather as it is, thank you very much.
READ MORE: 'Fragile' Neil Oliver mocked after bizarre comments on 'giving in' to Storm Eunice
Connery’s political opinions – support for Scottish independence, particularly that version advocated by the Scottish National Party – led to much ridicule in his lifetime, given the fact that he didn’t deign to live in the country, preferring to live the life of a tax-exile on the sun-kissed beaches of the Bahamas.
Fair enough, some Scots might say, given the propensity for damp, dour, dreich (delete as applicable) weather in this corner of the world. Over the last few weeks alone, Scotland, along with the rest of these islands, has been battered by a seemingly never-ending roll call of named storms – as Dudley, Eunice and Franklin made their presence felt, with Gladys the next on the way at the time of writing.
Nobody likes this miserable weather, even if there isn’t a feeling quite as cosy as being tucked up in bed like a cinnamon bun as a tempest rages outside, rattling the windows, sending wheelie-bins flying, and generally just being a pain in the arse.
Nonetheless, most people on these islands, however begrudgingly, wearily accept that the weather is something we don’t actually have any control over and prefer the Met Office warning us ahead of time about potentially lethal storms.
That is, unless you’re Neil Oliver. Formerly the seemingly mild-mannered host of Coast and A History of Scotland, Oliver took to Twitter bemoaning the apparent softness of the British people in the face of stormy weather.
“I see the weather is the latest thing we’re being advised to give in to without so much as a sigh,” huffed Oliver.
In a way, perhaps Oliver has a point. No, seriously, hear me out. If he was simply talking about the curious phenomenon of giving storms melodramatic names, then he’s absolutely right – the Met Office only started the practice of naming storms in 2015, four years after “Hurricane Bawbag” hit Scottish shores.
The adoption of Americanisms (“prom” anyone?) is indeed annoying, if harmless, and Oliver could be forgiven if that was his only beef – you see, I’ve just went ahead and done it too.
But in Oliver’s case, some of the darker imports from America seem to have consumed his mind.
It seems the triple threat of Scottish independence, Brexit, and latterly, the Covid-19 pandemic has broken his brain. His loathing of Scottish independence’s main proponents, the SNP, is well known, with Oliver’s railing against government mandates to combat coronavirus also a regular feature of his GB News slot – the dumping ground for the most divorced, reactionary, and downright unpleasant voices in the British media landscape.
Oliver, staring manically into the camera with his dishevelled beard and scarf, looks every inch a disgraced archaeologist foe of Henry Jones Snr. (Damn you Connery!) And now the weather seems to be the next hot topic frying his brain; his Partridge-esque derision for weather warnings would be funny, if it weren’t so insensitive. Indeed, the same day that Oliver tweeted out his lament to British cowardice in the face of stormy weather, four people died.
BUT then, given Oliver’s fact-free disdain for mitigations aimed at minimising deaths from Covid – 160,179 at the time of writing – it’s perhaps unsurprising he feels nothing for weather warnings that intend to prevent needless death.
READ MORE: 'Disgraceful' Neil Oliver pledges not to follow another Covid lockdown
In the sleazy vacuum of the culture wars, of which the UK Government is a willing participant, the weather, along with history, race, and trans rights, has simply become another warm front in which shameless grifters like Oliver can nonsensically bloviate; another stick to beat the amorphous “woke mob” with.
Maybe Oliver watched Connery in The Avengers and felt so threatened by the independence supporting actor’s scheme to control the weather – reality and fiction tend to be interchangeable to self-proclaimed culture warriors after all – that he felt compelled to act.
Therefore, we can likely pre-emptively roll our eyes at whatever the next topic Oliver feels compelled to complain about. Maybe a campaign against Nestle’s surrender to the snowflakes for dropping the “it’s not for girls” slogan from the Yorkie bar.
This article was written as part of a collaboration between The National/Sunday National and City of Glasgow College in which we are seeking to find and support the journalists of the future
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