Charing Cross aren’t very good at updating their tanoy messages. They’ve been running the same “Please take care due to today’s inclement weather” message whether the weather has been inclement or not.
I’m not irritated by that. After all, I have eyes and am perfectly capable of a risk assessment on whether or not to run down the platform in the rain. The message is for the other people.
Anyway, the thing that’s always bugged me is that South Eastern uses the word “inclement”.
In response to being asked what the weather is like I have never responded by saying “It’s inclement” and, hopefully, I never will. Not because I dislike the word, far from it, it’s a lovely sounding word and that’s the point – it doesn’t sound like it’s describing bad weather with all its inherent problems such as damp collar, biting winds, treacherous conditions underfoot and late trains.
Now, a cynical man would suggest that this is precisely why the rail companies insist on using this phrase, instead of just saying “today’s bad weather”. Of course – as you know – I am in no way cynical. Others might suggest it’s an affectation of an overly articulate member of South Eastern’s staff but I speak to these people every day and I find that unlikely. Really pedantic people might suggest that subconsciously the rail company is attempting to pass some kind of moral judgement on the weather’s lack of mercy to their need to operate a functioning rail service. Such people should be locked up. They are not to be trusted.
I know they do it just to confuse the tourists and chavs.
Beware of the anticyclone. 😉