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NEWS FLASHES – SOME STRIKING ADVICE.

You are experiencing the best round of Golf in your life. You have just had your first hole-in-one, and escaped successfully from a bunker deep enough to threaten the ‘bends’ should you surface too quickly. That’s not a putter in your hand; it’s a magic wand. You wonder when you will wake up. Sex was never this good.

You are now at the furthest point from the club-house, and the second nine beckons invitingly. You pause when you hear a distant rumble. The cloud nine on which you are happily cruising seems suddenly to be taking on a darker and slightly threatening hue. So what! You’re no fair-weather golfer. A few drops of rain won’t spoil the round.

What about thunder and lightning, though? Hmmm.

You place your ball on the tee and take a stance. Isn’t it about a million to one chance of actually being struck by lightning. After all, you are currently nestling in God’s Pocket. You feel lucky.

You may be interested to know that in Britain every year, on average, five people are killed in this fashion and twenty more seriously injured.

Not bad odds, you think.

Okey dokey then, try this: out in the open (no pun), lightning will automatically zone in on the tallest object in the vicinity. It will search out the most obviously erect dry feature – YOU – and pounce. A direct hit on a human not only causes severe burns, but lacerations to the brain, internal organs and possibly heart-failure.

It doesn’t mess about.

As the man on the sky with the giant finger in the Lottery advert points out ‘It could be you’.  

The thunder is getting louder. Or is it your heart picking up pace. Well, there are ways to minimise any possible (probable) damage. Two words to remember: dry and erect. The first thing you should do therefore is to get wet (under the circumstance, not as remote a possibility as you might suppose), and then curl yourself into a ball, clamping your feet tightly together. Your wet clothing will ensure that the electric current is conducted around the body, inflicting superficially burns only.

So, at least no exploding gut going off inside you like a fire-cracker.

Under certain circumstances, it is possible to anticipate a strike. Should you feel your hair standing on end (as though you have found yourself outside Castle Dracula as the Sun goes down, only to recall that Van Helsing is still in the village haggling over the price of stakes), it is an indication that a positive electric current is rising from the ground to meet the negative charge of an approaching thunderstorm.

Having this knowledge, any advice is superfluous, as you are standing on the site of a potential barbecue, with you as the kebab.

Bald people, of course, will have to rely on some equally sensitive antennae.

Beware too, of searching for shelter from that encroaching storm. It may be prudent to remind yourself in this instance of the words of the song, “If you should hear thunder, don’t run under a tree”, as it won’t just be Pennies coming down from Heaven. It so happens that trees (who fit the criteria of ‘erect’ and ‘dry’ very nicely), have a high electrical resistance so that any direct hit will encourage a ‘side-flash’ to a much better conductor.

In this situation, not even Simon Rattle on Speed would make a more attractive lightning conductor than you.

Let’s imagine you’ve hit a screamer down the centre of the fairway. You are in reach of the Green and staring at an historic Birdie. Take a look at the darkening sky. Don’t think medals, think metals. You have got a veritable bag full of the stuff. Those dramatic bolts-from-the-blue, can strike quite a distance from you, but then travel along the ground as it locates those objects it most desires.

There should be no question about your next, extremely sharpish, move; a retreat to the haven of the nineteenth hole, where you can philosophically reflect on how you could so easily be exchanging your golf-handicap for another more permanent one entirely.

Finally – fatuous advice perhaps – don’t ring home from a handy land-line with a reassuring message. Lightning can strike the telephone wires, carry on down the line, and exit from the hand-set. There may not be anyone talking behind your back, but your ears will almost certainly be burning.