For sky watchers, there is not one, but three things to get excited about. The biggest, and most obvious, is the solar eclipse on Wednesday, where nearly all the sun was eclipsed by the moon.
On the same day, we had the alignment of 6 planets as seen from Earth. Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all lined up for us at the small hours of Wednesday morning. And if two wasn’t good enough for one day, we also had the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, with up to a 100 shooting stars an hour.
For both political geeks and comedy nerds, the Clacton by-election provides political intrigue and comedy farce at the same time. Count Binface seems to be giving Nigel Farage a run for him money, and while I expect that Nigel win, a tiny bit of me would be delighted if Count Binface becomes the next MP for Clacton, even if it ridicules the serious business of politics. But if Nigel wins (he will), there will almost certainly be another by-election before Christmas, depending on the outcome of the enquiry into his £5 million undeclared gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
On the much more serious issue of the record-breaking hot summer, we have a COBRA meeting, with the new prime minister chairing his first emergency meeting on the droughts we are suffering across the majority of the UK. COBRA meetings are odd things. COBRA is short for ‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A’, so it is more a venue than thing in itself. I went to a few as a minister. But they signal that a topic is being taken very seriously indeed, and quite right. This summer’s heatwave is unprecedented, and the lack of water has serious implications for our energy supply, where water is used to cool nuclear reactors and energise hydro-power.
But for hundreds of people across Wyre Forest, this week marks A-level results week! Teenagers will end this week knowing if they made the grades they need to get into university. Parents will be sitting anxiously waiting to see if it is all working out as planned. And next week, we have GCSEs.
I flunked my A-levels, so I know how stressful it can be. But I hope that everyone gets the grades they hoped for, and the door opens for the next stage of their life journey
