seasons change with the scenery...

I’m sad to be the one to break it to you, but winter is coming.

We’re barely into August, and already the mornings have a distinctly autumnal feel as I get onto my bike to cycle to work: there’s a nip and dampness to the air that tells me that we’re only a short hop away from woolly jumpers and the smell of bonfires.

On the plus side, that also means that it’s nearly time to light the fire and soon I can start cooking big, heavy, slow-cooked stews.

Mmmmm. Stews.

Yeah, so summer has the sunshine and warmth and beautiful long, light evenings where you can sit outside with your friends….but salads? Is that really the best you can do?

#teamstew

if the rain comes, if the rain comes

I woke up early on Monday morning to the sound of the rain lashing down outside.  I actually really like the sound of falling rain.  When you're all tucked up in bed, it's very soothing.  Unfortunately for me, it was still raining a couple of hours later when I had to leave the comfort of my bed to get onto my bike for the ride into work.  The cat had a look out of the back door when I opened it to get my bike, but she had the luxury of turning on her heel and heading back to bed.  Alas, I did not.

With the crazy weather we've been having, it really wasn't much of a surprise to see that the sun had come out by the time I was showered and at my desk ready to start the week.  It's when the weather is like this that people stop cursing you as a cyclist for avoiding all the traffic jams caused by Nottingham's interminable tram works (three years and counting) and pretend to sympathise whilst smugly thinking how they arrived to work all cosy and dry.

The weather actually doesn't bother me, and I cycled to work on Monday in the rain thinking about how much I was enjoying it.  Sure, I got wet and it was a Monday morning and I had the prospect of wet gear festering in my locker waiting for the ride home, but it really wasn't so bad.  Over the two years I've been commuting on my bike, I've really come to value that 15-20 minute blast in the fresh air at the beginning and end of each day.  I work in a large office and spend a lot of time at my desk or in meetings in windowless rooms.  If I drove to work, I'd barely know what the weather was doing from one day to the next.  This way, at least I get a real feel for it.  What's the point in being worried about a bit of weather?  I have a waterproof jacket, access to a hot shower at either end and a locker with a change of clothes...why worry about a bit of rain?  Plus, at this time of year, I get to enjoy the baby bunnies frolicking in the grass alongside the cycle path.

This year has really been all about the running up until now, but since the New Year, I've also cycled something over 520 miles.  Almost all of it going backwards and forwards between home and the office. Together with the 550-odd miles that I've run in the same period, I suppose I've had plenty of time to get hardened to the British climate.

...although, of course, I don't count the cycling as exercise.  I'm sure Alistair Brownlee is the same.  Maybe Bradley Wiggins too.

I can sing a rainbow.....

I had to take the car I almost never drive to the garage to be serviced today.  On the one hand, this was a bit of a bind because it meant I wouldn't be cycling and would be a little bit later for work than usual (and it seems I'm a creature of habit about that sort of thing).  On the other hand, it was absolutely throwing it down with rain at a time when I would normally be cycling to work, and when I got out of the car to walk to the office, the sun had come out and there was a beautiful rainbow.

So pretty, I took a photo.

The colours were so distinct, that I found it impossible not to think of the mnemonic that helps you remember the order of the colours of the spectrum..... except that I don't use the normal one, and two different ones are embedded in my head.

I was about eight years old and we were just learning about the spectrum of colours in science. Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.  Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.  You know the drill.  Our science teacher then challenged us to come up with our own mnemonics.

I came up with this:

Rain Over Yugoslavia Gives Boffins Invaluable Vestige.

I was really very pleased with it.  And yes, even at eight years old, certain parts of my personality appear well established.

Sadly, it didn't win the competition as my best friend came up with this:

Really? Oh You Great Big Idiot, Vivian.

Dammit.  An important early lesson that simple is better.

A lesson I ignored, obviously.

Anyway.  So that's what I think of when I see a rainbow.  That and the gold at end, of course.  In this case, I reckon it was somewhere in Beeston.  Unlikely, but it could happen.

you can fight the sleep but not the dream....

At about this time of year, a few thousand people begin paying very close attention to the weather forecast of a very specific place in Somerset.... Yup.  It's the Glastonbury Festival next weekend.  It is perhaps the most famous festival in the world and many amazing things have happened here over the years, but you know what most people think about when someone mentions the festival?

The mud.  Apparently even the Queen does it when someone mentions the festival in conversation.

There's a very good reason for this, of course: the festival takes place on a farm, and when it rains, it gets very wet.  With 150,000 people tramping about the place, it doesn't take very long for the site to turn into a quagmire.  It's not so bad really: it makes getting around the place a lot harder and slower, and it's next to impossible to find somewhere to sit down... but as long as you have a decent pair of boots and a sense of humour, it's perfectly manageable.  Well, unless perhaps you wake up to find your tent floating in the same lake as some portaloos, as happened to some poor souls in 2005 (pictured above).

The fact is that Glastonbury enjoys almost saturation (!) media coverage when it is on: it's all over the BBC, for starters.  Although I think people like the pictures of people basking in the sun at a festival, I think they really enjoy the pictures of people slogging through the mud much more.  There's a kind of perverse pleasure watching other people suffer in the swamp when you're at home in front of your telly, isn't there?  Perhaps it feels even better if you're one of the thousands of people who tried to get a ticket and failed.  I'm fairly sure it does. The Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude. The pleasure derived from watching other people suffer.  Everyone wants to come to Glastonbury after a sunny one; very few people fancy it when they see a muddy one.

Honestly, it's not that bad.  I look at the weather forecasts the same as everyone else, but I tend to take mostly the same stuff every year anyway.  What's the worst thing that can happen?  That you lug your boots in and you turn out never to need them?  It is what it is, right?  I already drive a small, diesel car in a one-car household, recycle all my paper and cardboard and have no children.  What more could I realistically do to try and slow down climate change?

2013 will be my eleventh Glastonbury in all, and my tenth in a row since 2002 (no festival was held in 2006 or in 2012).  In all that time, I think my weather tally is two really gorgeous, sunny festivals, 3 really wet and muddy ones, and all the rest have been somewhere in-between.  The only conclusion I can draw is that it is entirely typical of the English climate that the weather in Somerset at the end of June to be a little bit wet, a little bit sunny, a bit windy and perhaps a bit chilly at night.  Indeed, that's pretty much exactly what is forecast this time around.  It's the kind of weather where you catch a bit of sun on your nose whilst wearing your wellies and your raincoat all day.  People have been moaning about the sunshine and showers we've been having over the last few weeks and saying how it's unseasonable.... well, I'm not sure that it is, really.

Anyway.  When it's nice, it's one of the most splendid places in the world.... whatever the weather.  As long as you're with the people you love, right?

....and you have some cider.  I'll be there first thing on Wednesday morning, rain or shine, and I can't wait.

...and so is Ian McCaskill

If you’re British or have ever spent any time in this country, you’ll know that we’re hopelessly obsessed with the weather. We’re blessed with a temperate climate that isn’t too much of anything: not very hot, not very cold; neither particularly wet nor too dry; not prone to cyclones or hurricanes or any other kind of extreme weather event…. Perhaps as a direct result of this, as a nation we seem to be fascinated with every tiny fluctuation in the weather conditions in every part of this little island.  We love the shipping forecast for heaven's sake.  It interrupts national broadcasting and is full of the most wonderful, impenetrable poetry - "North Utsire, South Utsire, Tyne, Dogger. Northeast 3 or 4. Occasional rain. Moderate or poor"- but how many people actually use it for its original purpose?  Don't they have radar and t'internet on ships these days?

This summer has been a case in point: it’s been a dry winter so we have hosepipe bans. This makes the news. Then we have a bit of rain, and that makes the news… because we have hosepipe bans (“you need to think of it like a bank account” said the man from the water board on the radio, “all this rain has topped up our current account in the rivers and reservoirs, but our savings accounts in the water table remains very dry”). Then we have some hot weather and the papers are full of people with their shirts off in the park. This weekend, we had floods and they made the news nationwide. We love a bit of weather here. But only a bit, mind.  We get nervous and excited if we get too much.

Anyway. If it wasn’t a fallow year, the Glastonbury Festival would have taken place last weekend. As I heard people in the office moaning about how it looked like we were not going to get a summer at all this year, I couldn’t help but think about the conditions that I’ve seen over the ten or so years that I’ve been attending the festival. I’ve been to some of the wettest Glastonburys on record – the floods of 2005 and the prolonged downpours of 2009 in particular; I’ve been to some sunny Glastonburys too – 1993 was lovely and 2010 was scorching… but as I went out for a run from the office one lunchtime this week, it struck me that the weather we’re having right now is pretty much typical of the weather I see when I’m standing in a field in Somerset drinking cider and watching a band I’ve never heard of: it’s a bit blowy and a bit damp around the edges, it might be a bit chilly with rain during the night, but there’s also enough sun about that you pick up a bit of a tan if you stand outside in a t-shirt all day. Wimbledon started on Monday too, and what’s that most famous for? That’s right, rain.

So, for all that it seems like we’re talking about the weather even more than usual at the moment we’re probably, er…. having entirely typical weather for this time of year? Haven’t we got anything else to talk about, for goodness sake?

Look, I realise that the fact I spoke about the weather on here myself only a couple of weeks ago means that I’m hardly in much of a position to criticise this obsession…..and by talking about it again now I’m just colouring in my own stereotype…. I’m just saying.

What a ridiculous people we are.

when the weather vane points to gloomy....

Last week, I heard the terrible news that Rob McElwee is no longer going to be presenting the weather forecast on the BBC.  It's all part of some cuts that are seeing McElwee, Phillip Avery (another favourite of mine for his almost 1940s approach to weather bulletins on the radio) and Tomasz Schafernaker move to back office roles at the Met Office.

Apparently, after 90 years of working in partnership with the Met Office, the BBC recently decided to put the contract for the weather out to tender.  The Met Office won it, but are now clearly having to make cuts in order to make any money out of the deal.  Presenters earn more money if they appear on air, and so three high profile presenters are making way.

Old school weather forecasters like Bill Giles are wondering if this is a further sign that the BBC are continuing their inexorable move away from presenting the weather seriously: using proper meteorological experts to write and deliver the forecasts and replacing them with nicer looking, younger and - crucially - cheaper presenters.

As former head of the team of weathermen at the BBC, Giles is clearly worried about this dumbing down.  He is, however, no fan of McElwee:

"While many people seem to like Rob’s quirky style, I think he is well past his best. I find his delivery irritating and condescending.  If he was to stay on air, he would certainly need training to stop him lowering his voice and petering out at the end of sentences"

Well, with respect Bill, that's a rather pompous way of looking at it.  I like Rob McElwee and I'll miss him terribly when he's gone.  He's been a familiar face on the telly since 1991, and in a world of autocue robots, his idiosyncratic presentation style is a breath of fresh air (with a chance of showers later on in the eastern counties).  This isn't just some monkey in front of a camera and an autocue, this is a guy with a sense of humour and a nice, wry delivery.  We have crappy weather in this country; it's not really much of anything.... never really wet, never really dry; rarely really hot and rarely really cold.  It changes a lot.  So we talk about it ALL THE TIME.  We can't rely on it being hot in summer or cold in winter, so localised weather forecasts are pretty important to us, and the people who deliver them to us become familiar figures:

As Joe Moran, a reader in cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University says in the Guardian:.

"I think the BBC forecasters become cult figures because they aren't trying to be personalities, and they are employed for their expertise.  It was the ordinariness of them – people like Fish and McCaskill were an antidote to celebrity culture. I also think the fact that the forecasts are unscripted is important – the personality of a forecaster, like Rob McElwee, comes through in a way that you just don't get with the glassy stare at the Autocue. It becomes more of a conversation with the viewer. I think McElwee's forecasts are little  masterpieces of concision and wry wit and complicity with the viewer."

It was bad enough that they changed the weather map to that awful scrolling around thing, but getting rid of McElwee?  In an anodyne, homogenized, autotuned world, this is truly awful news.  Apart from anything else, how can you not love someone who describes his hobby as finding enough time to have a hobby....apparently so far he has failed.  Sadly it looks like that situation might be about to change.

Be careful what you wish for, eh Rob?

Last winter was the coldest for 31 years with an average UK-wide temperature of just 1.5C (35F), down on the long-term average of 3.7C (39F).  As we slip towards November and the bleak prospect of Britain being gripped by another harsh winter comparable with those of 1939-42, surely we need all the expert forecasters and comforting asides in our forecasts that we can get?

watch out where the huskies go.....

It's pretty cold around these parts at the moment, and apparently we are having the worst cold weather conditions the country has seen in some 15 years. As you'd expect from a nation that is obsessed by the weather and gets its knickers in a knot at the slightest deviance from the norm*, this has been all over the national news, with lots of pictures of people struggling through not-actually-very-extreme conditions at all.

[*come to think of it, that's a trait that applies to much more than just the weather, doesn't it....]

It's not just the national news that's affected though, and today we had the following message put up on our company intranet:

"Over the past few weeks our team have done a brilliant job of gritting the site throughout the day and night trying to melt the ice on the roads and pavements, using an unprecedented 60 tonnes of road salt. Although we have a number of orders in place with the national grit supplier, there is a national shortage and an embargo has been put in place, meaning only councils will be provided with grit."

They're choosing to prioritise public highways over private sites? tsk. How very dare they!

It goes on....

"To ensure we can make the remaining of our grit last as long as possible, we are working closely with the health and safety, business planning and the risk department, to priorities key areas to grit. This means that some roads, car parks and pavements on site may be untreated, so please take extra special care when parking cars and making your way around site, taking all necessary precautions such as wearing sensible footwear."

.... you just know that they've had meetings about this, don't you? You know: Health & Safety getting together with Business Planning and the Risk Department, perhaps over a bagged lunch and coffees, to discuss the most pressing issues of the day.

Areas to prioritise? Hmm. From the Executive Car Park to the main entrance?

They've also helpfully provided a few handy hints and tips for travelling safely in the cold weather and popped them on the intranet.  I think I'll quote these in full:

Pedestrians
1. Take extra care and allow more time for travelling between your destinations.
2. Only wear shoes or boots with appropriate grip. Bring an extra pair of shoes if necessary.
3. Always dress warmly, but also wear bright colours so motorist and cyclists can see you.
4. Pay extra attention to roads you may cross - cars may not be able to stop quickly or as suddenly in ice conditions.
5. Try to avoid carrying things while walking, as this can throw you off balance.
6. Take extra care when getting in and out of vehicles.

Cyclists
1. In these types of conditions with patches of black ice on the roads it is advised to find alternative methods of transport if possible.
2. When arriving at the site, we advise that you dismount and walk across site.
3. Always dress warmly, but also wear bright colours so motorists and pedestrians can see you.
4. All cyclists travelling in poor lighting conditions must have front and back lights on by law.
5. Reduce your speed, according to road conditions.
6. Focus on road conditions and activity well ahead.
7. Remember motorist may not have such a clear view from their vehicle and may not see you
8. Make sure bike is in good working order.
9. On your journey, regularly check your brakes, pedals and wheels for ice or snow build up. Stop if necessary and clean, checking your breaks are still effective.
10. There is a higher risk of ice build up and hidden obstacles on the side of the roads – please ensure you cycle on a clean area of road.

Drivers
1. When roads are slippery it will take you longer to stop - up to 10 times longer.
2. Drop your speed and give yourself more time to slow down.
3. Do not use you mobile phone when driving, this is against the law.
4. Take extra care when approaching crossings, giving plenty of time to brake/react.
5. Take extra care in car parks and be considerate to other motorists and pedestrians when parking.
6. Make sure your headlights are kept regularly clean.
7. Ensure your tyres have adequate tread.
8. Ensure snow on your roof is removed as this can slip forward and block your view.

Icy roads may mean it takes you longer to stop? Thank goodness they're here to tell us these things. It's surely what corporate intranet sites were invented for.

Tomorrow: why breathing both in AND out on a regular basis will help us enjoy a longer life.....

Should I be more worried by the fact that my nanny company publishes this stuff for us, or that they think that they employ people who need to be told?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off out for a run.

I may be some time.

April come she will.....

When we were in Ecuador in the spring of 2007, our guide had a wise saying: "not for free is the rainforest". He would say this, with a phlegmatic shrug of his shoulders, whenever anyone looked anxiously at the sky. He had a point. Why worry about whether it's going to rain or not? After all, it was the rain that made the beautiful landscape of this stunning country possible.

The phrase sprang unexpectedly to mind as I was stood over a barbecue in the rain on Sunday. Instead of spending the day arguing with my dad over the existence or otherwise of the historical figure of Jesus Christ, I had elected to spend the weekend with my friends in Oxford watching the final two rounds of the US Masters golf at Augusta. I'm sure I've spent Easter away from my parents before, but there was something wonderfully liberating this year about electing to spend the time with friends instead of family. We drank beer, we drank wine, we shot the breeze about the golf, fell asleep in front of old re-runs of Red Dwarf and we generally relaxed in the company of people we've actively chosen to spend our time with over the course of the last 25 years. Are friends the new family? Is black the new black? I can never keep up with these things.

Given that it was April and we're in England, perhaps it was a little ambitious to plan to have a a barbecue on Sunday... and sure enough, no sooner had we put all of the bits and bobs out on the garden table and fired up the charcoal, than it started to rain.

I didn't mind it though. Ten days in Canada, beautiful country though it is, has given me a new appreciation of the English spring. The Rockies are stunning, no question, but where the winter snow is starting to melt, the grass underneath is like dirty brown straw. It's not surprising, really, given that it's been under a coat of snow for several months and hasn't seen a jot of sunlight in all that time, but it's still not very attractive. England at this time of year, on the other hand, is absolutely bursting with promise. Compared to Canada, of course, the temperature is extremely mild, but how pleasing is it to see the trees blossoming, the daffodils blooming, to smell the first grass cuttings of the season and to smell the changing season in the air? Of course, as Ivan from Ecuador would point out, this stuff doesn't come for free..... but if the price we have to pay for the English spring is a little rain, then I say bring it on.*

I've had a lot on my mind recently, but it was a great weekend.

---

* if it's still raining in May, however, with no sign of abatement and Glastonbury beginning to figure in my thoughts, then I reserve the right to change my mind.

(but baby you'd freeze out there)

It was the unnatural glow that made me open the bathroom window to have a look outside. I knew what it was even before I opened the window, but I had to see it with my own eyes. Snow. Bollocks. It's great when you're a kid and you might get a day off school mucking about on a sledge, but when you have to slog your way to work, it seems to be not much more than an inconvenience that makes your feet wet, your car journey to work a nightmare and the cancellation of your football game that evening a certainty.

A little later on, as I opened my car door to reach for my scraper to remove some of the snow, a little fluffy bundle fell off the roof and landed squarely on the driver's seat and began to melt. My hands were getting cold and I was not in the best of moods as I contemplated the almost virgin snow still sat on the road.

Brilliant.

And then, completely unexpectedly, somewhere along the way to work, I had a total change of heart about the whole thing. Traffic was moving slowly and carefully on roads still slick with snow and ice, and my usual ten minute journey to work was taking far, far longer than usual. I was running late, but for some reason I began to enjoy the weather. After all, surely anything that can enliven an otherwise mundane Thursday in February, the first week back in the office after a lovely holiday, is surely to be embraced?

The roads were busy, but they were also blessedly silent, with the usual noises of traffic hushed by the snow. There was an air of camaraderie amongst the rush-hour drivers too: we were all in this together. The car park at work was oddly quiet too, with people apparently marooned in their lovely houses. You couldn't see the parking spaces either, so people were just doing the best that they could. It was nice.

I left the office fairly early and, in lieu of my cancelled football game, I decided to go for a run. It was dark, and the slightly warmer temperatures meant that the snow was rapidly turning into slush, but I loved every moment of that 4 miles, even though the icy water quickly turned my feet into mobile blocks of ice. As the relentlessly random DJ in charge of my iPod took me from Jeff Buckley to AC/DC and from Scott Walker to Iron Maiden, I admired the slightly sagging snowman in the doorway of a house with his parsnip prick still standing proud; I smiled at the huddled couples walking their frolicking dogs alongside the pond; I weaved my way through the forest of waterfowl footprints in the snow along the Trent Embankment; I ran down the slippery green trails left by the first beginnings of snowmen; I tipped my metaphorical hat at the snowman and the snowdog sat on one of the benches by the river. Above all, I enjoyed the fresh air and the sense of quiet. Thursday evenings around rush hour are not normally this peaceful.



Robert Frost springs to mind:

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."

We might get some more snow tonight, although I think it might be too warm now. I actually hope that we do. Perhaps I'm still suffering the aftershock of a happy week spent in the snowy alps, but I could swear that the world seems a slightly nicer place with a blanket of snow.

....and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

it feels like years since it's been here...

I ventured out into the spring sunshine at lunchtime today to go for a run. I don't generally need much encouragement to flee my desk, but I really like running when the sun's out. I run all year round, of course, and I'd never exactly say that I enjoy it, but there's something especially soothing about sticking your sunglasses on and running in the sun. I'm still going out in my thermal long-sleeved tops, mind you, but then I've always been a bit of a masochist when it comes to running, and I like it when I get really, really hot and sweaty as it always makes me feel like I've had to work that little bit harder. Besides, I've started leaving the hat, gloves and windproof jacket at home, so things must be looking up. It was lovely outside here today. Warm, but with a lovely breeze - strong enough to be cooling but never strong enough to feel like a headwind. A good way to spend your lunch hour, I think.

As I was running along the new path down by the river, before hooking back towards the office, I looked up and saw that the sky was filled with the sleek, streamlined shapes of swallows. They were swooping and diving and generally making flying look like it's not just a mode of transportation but a really great game. Now, we all know that one swallow does not a summer make, but they are the traditional harbingers of the summer and there were five or six of them swirling around up there so..... is it safe to wonder out loud if we might actually get a bit of summer this year? A proper summer. Y'know - one where it actually stops raining for a bit so that the sun can come out?

Now, i wouldn't want you to think that I keep a journal of these things like some kind of low-rent Bill Oddie, but I can't help but notice that I didn't spot a single swallow around here until 3rd June last year.

Oh no. I'm nothing like Bill Oddie.

Nothing at all (although I do note the grey flashes in that beard...)

So what conclusions can we draw from the fact that I've spotted a swallow a good three weeks earlier than I did last year?

1) That we're going to have a really fantastic summer this year. Really hot and with loads of sun. Glastonbury's going to be brilliant.

2) Nothing at all. The number of swallows in the sky bears very little relation to what kind of weather we'll be having over the next few months. Anyway, what about global warming?

3) That I'm an feckless, near-sighted eejit who barely looks in the sky and couldn't tell the difference between a swan and a swallow from a distance of anything greater than about 10 feet.

My money's on a combination of 2 and 3, but there's surely no harm in hoping for number 1, eh?

Or - and here's a thought - instead of rabbiting on about the weather all the time, maybe I could either:

a) just move somewhere with a somewhat more clement and predictable climate.
or
b) shut up

Or is this what happens to all British people when they get to my age? Mild Weather Obsession (MWO) brought about by living in a damp and temperate climate subject to slight fluctuations but no great extremes? How many words do the English have for rain? Is it more than the Eskimos have for snow? It must be close.....

here comes the summer....(ii)

I should be careful what I say really, as I wouldn't want to be the one to jinx it the way that some loose-lipped blabbermouth must have jinxed it last year.... but, whisper it quietly, it feels as though summer is really on the way and might even be nearly here. It certainly seems to be thinking about putting in an appearance this year, anyway. We've had a few days in a row of sunshine and pleasant temperatures this week, and you can almost hear the nation breathing a huge sigh of relief at the passing of winter, and tentatively beginning to rummage around under the bed for the flip-flops.

Thursday night is football night around these parts, but when I packed my kit this morning, it was nice to feel confident enough for the first time in months to leave my thermal base layers, my hat and my gloves behind. Indeed, the game tonight was played in absolutely glorious sunshine, with just enough of a breeze to make running around a 5-a-side court for 90 minutes or so just about bearable.

My team won too, which was nice.

34 - 22, since you ask.

Yes, really.

Keep bringing us the good news Des.



You take care now...!

[points out at the camera and winks, whilst simultaneously giving what looks disturbingly like a loose-limbed pelvic thrust]

cold, cold water surrounds me now...

At the risk of sounding like a survivalist or as a supporter of some strange millennial Christian cult, I have to say that I find it quite alarming just how close to the Dark Ages we appear to be.

A little bit of water (well, several weeks of solid rain... finishing up with a month's worth falling in a single hour on Friday), and the fabric of our nation seems to be on the verge of falling apart. Apparently 350,000 people in Gloucestershire are going to be without running water tonight - an irony that is surely not lost on them as they sit in their sodden homes.

In spite of our pride in our wonderfully advanced civilisation, it seems that we are only ever around 72 hours away from chaos.... the 72 hours that it takes for the supermarkets to start running out of supplies. Apparently supermarkets across the west of the country have started selling out of basic essentials like water, bread and milk as people panic buy now in case they don't have the opportunity later. I should think that come tomorrow, it will be a case of the survival of the fittest, as hunter-gatherers in coracles strike out looking for their next meal, and the rest are just left to rot in their lovely detached houses with double-garages.

... and to think that only this weekend I was laughing at the British National Party's plans to build a refuge in rural Croatia. Apparently this is where the leaders of Britain's premier political purveyors of racist stupidity are planning to go when the oil supplies finally run out and the world collapses into anarchy.

As The Observer reported yesterday:

"One day some in the party hope it will become a sustainable community, one that is not reliant on fossil fuels or outside power of any kind but instead is capable of harnessing solar energy and tapping into local streams for fresh water."

I'll bet that sounds like a mighty attractive proposition to large portions of South-Western England at the moment (the terrible company you'd have to keep notwithstanding).

Oh hold on, what's that last bit about tapping into local streams?

Have those deep thinkers at the BNP taken flooding into account, do you think? Wouldn't it be ironic if this blissful idyll was destroyed by rising waters caused by global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels?

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people, obviously.

(The BNP, I mean. Not the people of South-Western England. I'm sure some of them are lovely.)

it seems like years since its been clear....

Right.

That's it.

I know it's ridiculously English of me to talk about this, but I am now officially bored of the weather we've been getting this summer. It just has not stopped raining in weeks. Last month was apparently the wettest June since records began (which sounds impressive, but records only began in 1914, which isn't really so very long ago in the grand scheme of things, but I suppose the wettest summer in the last 90 or so years is still pretty wet).

Frankly I'm amazed that there's any water left in the sky to fall, but it's been relentless.

Normally this doesn't really bother me - my bedroom when I was growing up had a partially flat roof and I used to love the sound of the rain beating down on it. I like rain. Hell, I spent a weekend in a tent on a muddy farm a couple of weeks ago, and that was just brilliant.... but this is ridiculous. Occasionally the sun comes out and it looks like things might be looking up.... but before too long it's pissing it down again with renewed fury, often with the sun still out (raincoat, umbrella and sunglasses? It's quite the look this year). You can't seem to go anywhere without getting caught in it. The last few times I've been out running, I've been drenched. Now, I quite like running in the rain once in a while, but every time I go? No thanks.

It was nice for most of the day today.....and then I went out to play football and it rained solidly for about 4 hours.

Is it me? Is it something I've done? Was it something I said?

I'm supposed to be going to the One Day International between England and the West Indies at Trent Bridge on Saturday. D'you think I should get the hint and maybe take an umbrella? Or perhaps I should just save myself the trouble of a drenching and stay in bed?

I suppose it could be worse: at least I don't live in Hull.

Not because of the floods.

Just generally.