Escaping Pollution from the Haze in Singapore, now Saharan Sand Smothers England

   In Singapore in June we suffered from the haze. Schools and colleges closed. Even if you could travel by underground and stay indoors, buildings were closed because maintenance staff who worked outdoors had to be sent home.
   You started to see people wearing white masks in the streets and walking through the underground stations. Pharmacies sold masks but there were long queues. I finally bought a mask. I discovered there were two sorts of masks. They cheaper ones lasted only two or three hours and you bought a pack of them. The more expensive ones lasted longer and were so expensive you bought only one.
     Singapore and Malaysia have a monsoon season with threatened flooding in early pre-spring. Often the roads are flooded so schools are closed.
    I thought I'd be safer spending spring or summer in London. But we had flooding in the UK. The Thames barrier protects most of London.
   Then in April, a day after April Fool's Day, we have sand from the Sahara flying all the way to the UK. What's the solution? Planting trees in the Sahara desert to anchor the soil?
  An end to jogging, since we have been warned not to do outdoor exercise.

A neighbour i London stopped to say from her upstairs windows she looked down on the sand on our home's wheelie bins.

If we sweep it up I suppose it must go in the brown back to nature bin reserved for earth and twigs.

Here's a car windscreen, covered in the gritty red sand. You must wash it off before starting the windscreen wipers or you hear an unpleasant and ominous graunching noise. Yesterday smog. Now silence. The cars have stopped running. The birds have stopped singing. It must be time for lunch.