Ill blows the wind …
Weather bomb! Sounds dramatic doesn’t it? Explosive cyclogenesis! Sounds even more dramatic! Paired words that I can imagine voiced with a booming, stentorian roar by Tom Baker’s incarnation of Doctor Who as the world faces up to cyclones and storms of unimaginable ferocity; a confrontation with nature’s pent-up fury released as a cataclysmic tempest that seeks ruination of the land …
As I type, the UK meteorological Office has issued a weather warning for the south and west of the UK and forecasts strong winds arising from such a weather bomb. In fact, it is predicted to be a storm of sufficient magnitude that they have given it a name.
So what have they called this child of a weather bomb? Brian, that’s what! Brian! I mean, with all the best will in the world to all the Brian’s of the world, what scale of pent-up fury can you imagine being unleashed by a Brian?
Now, there are some very well-known Brians: Wilson, Blessed, May, O’Driscoll and Cox (times two) to name but a few. In fact Blessed may be the man who roars (see what I did there?), Cox#2 may understand the secrets of the universe, and May may be Under Pressure, but none of them approach the realms of a furious cataclysm.
Elsewhere, we have Brian the snail (remember him) and the Brian to whom the Python’s gave Life (“Vewy well! I shall… welease… Bwian!“). LinkedIn claims profiles for 90+ Brians Gale and The Arctic Monkeys even recorded Brianstorm, but nowhere, absolutely nowhere should we have ‘Brian-offspring-of-an-explosive-cyclogenesis’! Here’s my take on it:
This storm will roar like a lion
Says the forecast that we all rely on,
But our climatic nemesis
(A fierce cyclogenesis)
Needs a name that’s more brutal than ‘Brian’!
(No offence is intended to any of the Brians out there, especially the ones that I know!)
