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Well Darlings,

As I write this it does look as if today might be more bearable than many have been in the past few weeks. The sun, which wasn't there this morning when I arose, is threatening to appear through the cloud, but there is a pleasant cool breeze which I feel sure will temper it should it succeed. This year Britain, like Germany and quite a few places around the globe, has experienced the hottest July on record.

Last week I reported on how busy we were here in Blackpool because of the good weather. Since then apparently there has been a television news report aired, one that I unfortunately missed seeing but have been told about so many times for it to become annoying, which I'm assured has put our busy into perspective - and some say into the insignificant category. There have been many British resorts that have almost buckled under the strain of trying to cope with the influx of holidaymakers. In places like the English Riviera, Bournemouth, and Brighton & Hove Actually (you might need to be English to understand that one!) we're told there were times when it was difficult to find a space on the beach or a room for the night. In fact all the southern resorts, and even those to the east like the perhaps somewhat thought languished Yarmouth, Cromer and Hunstanton, have reported being swamped by the rush to the coast, with many of their hotels and B & Bs enjoying being fully booked as people decided to stay on.

Whilst a few refuse to yet believe it, most people who study weather and climate trends are now of the opinion that the heatwave this year, and in time it will become even hotter, is the shape of things to come for Britain. Cornwall has already treated us to pictures of their first cage-diving trips for shark-watching tourists - something normally confined to the likes of Australia. We're told many of our thought to be faded seaside resorts may soon return to see their glory days again, as the world climate changes. As early as 2020 our resorts could become more favourable for sun seekers than those now popular in the Mediterranean basin where, according to the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, some will be too hot in summer, but more pleasant during spring and autumn.

Now you might think that these up to now seen as somewhat fading coastal resorts of ours would welcome the chance of such a revival, mightn't you? And undoubtedly some of them will - but there are many that appear not to want to return to their glory days. They fear being turned into a Costa del Wherever with all that comes with that - the modern high-rise hotel and apartment blocks all along the seafront, and the supporting masses of late-night entertainment venues and eateries. Tourism bosses and local councillors have appeared on television, and written in to the newspapers, complaining their infrastructure couldn't cope - their roads aren't good enough, the rail services are poor (non-existent for some!), and there simply wouldn't be enough food or (especially) water and sewerage provision to sustain such an eventuality.

You can count me in as being totally gob-smacked! Here we have Blackpool, a place which would give its eye teeth to return to its glory days, not even throughout this heatwave achieving saturation point, and then we have some other places that did, almost bursting with their venues running out of drinks, ice creams and food in general, not wanting their visitors - and apparently frightened by them. It's a funny old country we live in, isn't it? Strange! Odd!

I wonder what (just to mention one of many countries) Spain's economy would be like today had their people adopted the policy of: we don't want them here, we haven't got the infrastructure, there's no roads, water, sewerage pipes, or anything else, we can't cope? Most of the places we have flocked to in our millions over the past decades have evolved out of little more than fishing ports - many out of absolutely nothing - yet they have found a way to cope and in Spain, where bureaucracy appears to begin with at least six capital Bs, that was no mean achievement! But they did it, and through doing it on the whole today they undoubtedly enjoy a much better standard of living. I wonder too where our own country would be today had we on discovering North Sea oil complained: the infrastructure isn't good enough - it means all that pipework being laid, all those refineries being built, and all those people being around - we'll never cope with all that!

Those tourism bosses and councillors who wish to live in a museum should try becoming curators - they may be happier! When fortune smiles on us, we should embrace it - not complain about it. Yes, it may be sad that some of our history will disappear as we move on - but not all of it will, and besides today we have the technology to capture what we have forever so that we may look back on it at will. Caves and mud huts were once the des res, but who would want to live like that now?

Blackpool might need to wonder why it didn't fare so well as many other places during the heatwave. It was certainly very hot here, and we have an abundance of attractions that many of those other resorts don't - so being content with the influx we did receive would to me be seen as being complacent - I feel we should have done a lot better, and perhaps need to soul search as to why we didn't. That, of course, doesn't mean trotting out the usual garbage of it'll all be alright in the future, trust in the Masterplan! I wish the Masterplan well, but I have little confidence in it.

Buildings looking like they've come from "Moon City" are nothing new, projects like that have been hawked around since the seventies, but no place before has ever wanted to adopt them as a theme. I'm not at all convinced they'll do a lot for Blackpool. They have a hostile, unwelcoming look about them - like the moon, they lack atmosphere, and a beached whale for a conference centre as a key part of the casino plans might be tempting fate - beached whales don't have a good survival record, and few people will thereafter want to referred to as a Jonah for an expectation speech that didn't come to bear fruition!

There's such a thing as progress, and there's such a thing as the profane. If we are in the future to have the present climate of the Costas today, and that looks a good probability, then perhaps we should take note of some of those resorts tried and trusted ways. They are many and varied according to the clientele they wish to attract, but they are all to varying degrees mighty successful. Maybe we should pick a theme for a clientele that we mostly agree on, and then build on that rather than risk everything on being pioneers. Perhaps we would be advised to leave the moonwalking to Michael Jackson!

The idea behind the Storm City type of ventures, I like - but care is needed with the architecture! - and ideally we need more than one of them. Three would be good, and with separate themes: one for the families; one for the youthful and exuberant; and one for the more reserved and senior members of society - all built in sizes relevant to their expected quota. The casino and associated conference centre idea (should we get it!) is okay, it will prove beneficial despite having many downsides, but not for anywhere near where they wish to put it.

To my mind the conference centre needs to be well away from the heart of the resort. When your life-blood is the tourist, to block street after street, ban parking, and generally turn an area of the resort almost into a military zone, a no go area, with armed police for several weeks of the year is nothing less than stupid. Rows of armed police don't exactly convey a welcome to our tourists, do they? To put such a place in the very heart of the resort makes about as much sense as sticking a hospice on top of a discotheque!

People having a conference don't need to be near the sea front in order to talk to each other, or anywhere in the town, it is of no benefit to them. Far better to put them just a little inland, perhaps in a park-like environment, a luxury campus, where the delegates' security would be less conspicuous, not affect our tourists, and be far easier to maintain. Should they so wish, they would still be near enough to visit and enjoy the resort after they have done their business for the day.

An update on the weather: the sun was beaten back - it is now raining heavily, although I'm pretty sure we won't be getting any of those spectacular thunder and lightning storms seen down south. Which, also slightly relevant to casinos, gambling, odds and all that, brings me to some useless (?) information before I go: The odds of being hit by lightning are 1 : 3,000,000; the odds of winning the UK lottery jackpot are 1 : 13,983,816; and the odds of winning the Euro jackpot are 1 : 76,275,360. So you see, you are more than four times more likely to be hit by lightning than you are to win the lottery.

We're told a downside to the hot summers to come may be more frequent and spectacular storms. So, how lucky do you feel?

See you next week - keep those fingers crossed!

"The Bitch!" 29/07/06.

About the Author

"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not specifically gay in content. More information on the author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory: http://www.astabgay.com.