Richard & Judy: Wrong to be complacent when playing in the sea
J: THIS has been a terrible summer for drownings.
Twelve people have died on British beaches in the past week alone, including, tragically, two-year-old McKayla Bruynius, the little girl taken to hospital in Cornwall after she and her father were swept off rocks at Fistral Beach in Newquay. Her father Rudy was pronounced dead after he was pulled out of the water.
The RNLI has called for families on holiday to “respect the water” and avoid places where they could be dragged out to sea. And that’s the problem: most holidaymakers assume that our UK killer- shark-free waters are harmless playgrounds.
“Oh I do like to be beside the seaside, Oh I do like to be beside the sea” goes the jolly old holiday song. But those who live by the sea and, most of all, those who earn their living from it are only too aware of the ocean’s lethal potential. My novel I Do Not Sleep was inspired by a tragic incident that occurred soon after we bought our house in Cornwall.
Coastguard and life boats rescue family off Fistral Beach, Cornwall
The nearby fishing village of Polperro is delightfully pretty, a charming collection of white cottages, many built on stilts to hold them above the becks and rivers that swirl between them. Naturally this picturesque little place attracts many families on holiday but the fishing community is only too aware of the perils the sea holds deep.
A young, handsome fisherman called Daniel, only 20 or so, was totally at home on his boat in the late 1990s and loved his job. “My office,” he smilingly told a local TV documentary crew as they filmed him on his vessel surrounded by a flat-calm, idyllic sky-blue sea. And yet one day he went out alone on his boat – and never came back. The wreck was found in an inlet. Of Daniel there was no sign. Speculation was that he was knocked off his craft by the boom. The small boat was on automatic cruise. There was no way Daniel could swim fast enough to catch up with it. His body was never found.
Since that happened I have never looked at the sea with complacency. It’s beautiful but deadly.
Now five young men from London have been drowned off Camber Sands in East Sussex. Witnesses say that even in an area notorious for treacherous currents and riptides they have never seen the tide come in so fast as on that dreadful day. Those urban young lads were probably having the time of their lives beside the sea on the hottest day of the year.
Holidaymakers must listen to the RNLI. “Respect the water.” It’s not always a harmless holiday playground.
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Corbin has really gone off the rails
R: WOW. As far as own goals go, Jezza’s “tough on seatlessness, tough on the causes of seatlessness” stunt is a back-of-the-net classic. First there’s the sheer incompetence involved. If politicians are going to tell a whopper they usually shore it up rather more effectively than Jezza did. Was Corbyn not aware there are security cameras on Virgin trains? Did no one on his staff know? Didn’t they realise that he’d be taped ambling to his nice comfy seat 15 minutes after being filmed sitting pathetically on the carriage floor, bleating about having to squat there for the entire three-hour journey?
Then there’s the shabby dishonesty. Yes it’s true British trains are often overcrowded, late and unreliable, something needs to be done about it (although speaking as someone who went to school by train daily in the 1960s and 1970s I can assure the Labour leader things were even more abysmal under his cure of choice: nationalisation. Of course he knows that. It’s one of the myriad truths he’s in denial about).
But it is palpably not true that he was forced to crouch on the floor all the way from London to Newcastle. There were seats available. You can see them in shot as Jezza strolls straight past them, heading for his sit-down protest. (An aide later claimed that the seats actually contained tiny people, small children hidden from the camera, or possibly bags. What, all of them, in the entire apparently empty section? I think someone’s pants are on fire.)
Then there’s the hypocrisy. Corbyn’s meant to be personally delivering “the new politics”, isn’t he? Straight talk, no tricks, no fibs. Now he’s been caught red-handed pulling off a shameless (and hopeless) media stunt. It was about as straight as a corkscrew.
And his attempt to talk his way out of trouble at a press conference on Wednesday was toe-curling.
Nick Ferrari on Corbyn train row
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man squirming angrily before. He said he’d been, er, looking for two seats together so he could, er, sit with his wife and he, er, couldn’t find a pair of empty seats.
Well he didn’t say that on the video, did he? Just that the train was so “ram-packed” he couldn’t get a seat and was forced to sit on the floor. Pants pretty well alight now, right? (Oh and by the way – where was his wife? Sitting on her own bit of swaying floor? I doubt it.)
Former Labour transport spokesman Michael Dugher (sacked by Corbyn last year) talked of “his latest bizarre antics” and went on: “The bigger problem for Labour is that the voters can spot a bull****** a mile away.”
Corbyn’s unbearable sanctimony has indeed been exposed for all to see. Of course his supporters, hopelessly lost in the grotesque Jeremy Corbyn love-in (“We loooooove you, Jeremeeeeeeee!” they trill witlessly at his rallies) will dismiss Seatgate as a media conspiracy to do their darling down.
Sorry guys. Own goal. Accept it.
Actually, on one level I’m almost grateful to the Dear Leader. Speaking as a columnist who’s never sure where his next 500 words are coming from, Jezza is the gift that just keeps on giving.
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Burkini police surely encourage extramism
J: LAST week I wrote about the burkini ban slapped on Muslim women who dress modestly on French beaches. I said then it was wrong and completely counterproductive. And now the French courts have overturned the ban. But not before we had the horrific and sinister snap of two French policemen forcing a head-scarved woman to take off her tunic on a beach in Nice.
The woman seems bewildered and humiliated as the police stand threateningly over her and fellow sunbathers more acceptably attired in next to nothing stare at her shame as she is bullied into stripping off her top.
There’s something very ugly about this picture: it reeks of religious intolerance and cruelty and will surely fan the flames of extremism.
And the woman’s outfit doesn’t even look like a burkini. She’s wearing leggings, a T-shirt and a tunic. I’ve seen scores of European women dressed similarly on French beaches over the years, keeping the sun off their skin.
And if it wasn’t the tunic and leggings that motivated the police was it the headscarf? If so heaven help us.
Islamic fundamentalists could and probably will use this picture as a recruitment poster. And if you need proof of how insane this law is I refer you to Thursday’s World At One on Radio 4. Ed Stourton, the presenter, asked the Mayor of Nice if the police would challenge a nun wearing her habit should she venture on to the beach. “Of course,” was the reply. Mad.