Neil Oliver and the War on Woke Weather
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 with lethal consequences to ensue 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 cat-suit donning Dianna 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.
Connery’s political opinions — support for Scottish independence, particularly that version advocated by the Scottish National Party (SNP) — 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 have 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.
However, 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 — where he regularly walked up stairs wearing cargo breeks, keeked through holes, and posed like a haddie — the archaeologist (Oliver’s no historian; believe it or not, your humble writer is more qualified in history than my fellow alumni) 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 Oliver 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 gone 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 in the mid to late 2010s broke 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 UK deaths from Covid — 160,179 at the time of writing — it’s perhaps unsurprising that he feels nothing for weather warnings that intend to prevent needless death.
In the sleazy vacuum of the culture wars, of which the UK government is a more than willing participant, it’s not a shock that the weather, along with history, race, and trans rights, has become another warm front in which grifters like Oliver can nonsensically bloviate, another stick to beat the “woke mob” with.
Maybe Oliver watched Connery in The Avengers and was so insulted 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.
