How is this happening?

February hasn't been as long as January.  It'll end up having been at least 200 days shorter, but it's still seeming a bit longer than its super-sized 29 days.  It's just been one storm after another.  And I've had a cold pretty much all month.  Just as it's hard to work out whether it's been one long storm or several shorter ones (correctly, it is the latter) so is it hard to work out whether I've had one cold all month or two successive ones.  Still, the way to get through it is by consoling ourselves that pretty much every other part of the country has been (and still is) enduring a considerably more meteorologically hostile environment than we are.

But spring is surely just around the corner, isn't it?  It'll be March on Sunday.  And then nine days later it will be the first day of the (Cheltenham) Spring Carnival.  (Corona-virus permitting).  Gee, the Corona-virus situation is a worrying one, a proper matter of life and death.  For those who don't die, and let's hope that that's nearly everyone, any inconvenience sustained will be a small penalty compared to that suffered by those who do, but even so it's going to wreak major economic havoc.  Whether or not the Cheltenham Festival is interrupted is, in the great scheme of things, not even on the radar when one is considering the potential casualties, but it is understandable that racing's talking heads are already becoming exercised on the subject.

Other news (and I'm not sure that we can say 'other' as it's debatable whether a hypothetical discussion about whether the Cheltenham Festival will happen counts, strictly speaking, as a new story) is even stranger.  We went to watch '1917' in Cambridge last night so I was a bit shell-shocked when we got home at 8.30 (I'd have been a bit shell-shocked anyway getting home past my bedtime) but I seem to recall somewhere in the mental mist reading a story which says that a Turf Club/HRI (delete as applicable) employee is suing the Irish Trainers' Federation for defamation and that the costs so far have already reached 600,000 euros.

I'll have to dig this out and read it again because surely I am delusional in thinking that this can be happening?  But if my memory is correct, then that is exactly the sorry pass which has been reached.  If this is so, then the whole situation reflects maximum discredit on everyone involved, both plaintiffs and defendants.  This is just idiotic, and everyone involved on either side needs to take a long, hard look at himself/herself for allowing this to happen.  Funds in most areas of the sport are not plentiful, and I can't see that the Turf Club/HRI, its employees, the Irish Trainers' Federation or any of its members have 600,000 euros spare to give away to lawyers.  Insane.  Just completely insane.

Aside from that (assuming that the Cheltenham Festival does take place) I'm bracing myself for the inevitable nonsense which will come with it.  Repeatedly being told that 'this shows how much it means to xxx' drives me to distraction.  Whether someone jumps up and down in a show of excitement does not show how much what has just happened means to him/her.  It just gives an indication of how good or otherwise he/she is at treating Triumph and Disaster just the same.  Whoever ends up having to pay the 600,000+ euros will definitely find that the disaster means quite a lot to him, but one still hopes that he'll write the cheque with dignity (while musing on the very good question of 'How the f%@k did I allow this to happen?').