Everywhere you go...you always take the weather with you (or FGS, it is JUNE)

Great British weather. All of these. Every day.

Apart from stiff upper lips, a penchant for pomp and a greater-than-average tolerance for "celebrity" (c'mon, guys, Fearne Cotton?!), one thing we Brits are famous for is blathering endlessly about the weather.  Today, I would like to share with you my theory as to why and blather endlessly myself about the unseasonably damp spell we've been having recently.


Everywhere you go in the UK, you'll hear, "Cold, isn't it?" or "Hot enough for you?" or "Lovely weather for ducks!" type remarks.  Some people complain, and other people complain about the people who complain, saying such insightful things as, "It's never right for some, is it?!"


So, why are we famous for banging on so incessantly about the weather?  Well, I'm not a meteorologist, fgs, so don't shoot me if this is a load of baloney, but I think it's because we have "weather" rather than "a climate".  So we don't have a traditionally rainy season (well, we do, it's called "summer" - ba-dum-tss!), a season where it is markedly hot-without-precipitation, a couple of months of guaranteed snow, etc.


Instead, we have the kind of year-round unpredictability that means that every day is pretty much a series of unforeseen shocks, meterologically-speaking.  We simply have weather that takes the weather forecasters by surprise (don't it, Michael Fish?)...

On the bright side, our changeable weather that means that we are never short of a small-talk conversation starter, however tedious the ensuing chat may be.  But think about what it would be like if we had the kind of weather that was:

• hot, damn hot in summer
• snow in winter
• damp in autumn
• bit blowy and rainy in spring, but quite bright

And then imagine it's like that every year.  No unseasonably warm spells in the middle of November.  No snow in June.  You wake up, the weather's exactly what you expect it will be, according to the calendar.  You put on the clothes you've decided you'll wear the night before (heck, the week before, the YEAR before) and you go about your day, not giving a second thought to any of it.


Wouldn't we get a lot more done if it were like that?  No, "Ooh, it looks like rain, shall I take a brolly with me?  A sou'wester?" or "I've got a thin raincoat, but it's not very warm, perhaps I'll need my thicker coat" or "Well, I know it's July, but it might get a bit nippy this evening, I'd better put a thin sweater in my bag" - IMAGINE not having to plan for all elemental eventualities!  We would probably have found time to have cured cancer, invented something considerably better than the wheel AND written a far more plausible ending to Lost than the one they limped tortuously towards for 1,407 series #stillbitter


In fact, we wouldn't be called "Great Britain" - we would be called "Superb Britain".  And we'd win Eurovision every year too.


Anyway.


On to the weather this "summer".  For inverted commas are indeed needed to describe the shower of showers, gales, hail and other such unseasonable shite the heavens have seen fit to throw at us thus far this year.  Apparently, factfans, it is because the jet stream is further south than usual.


But I can't help feeling that I would like to complain to whoever is in charge, please.  Because that's what we do, in Great Britain, isn't it?  Complain and seek compensation.  You can do it with your Oyster card if your London Underground tube train is delayed for more than 15 minutes, after all, so surely you must be able to complain about your summer being delayed for well over a month. I'd quite like some vouchers.  Maybe they could be for a trip to a place where you can set your watch by the seasons?


Or maybe for some galoshes.  Funny, you never hear anyone speak of one "galosh", do you?  Why is that, I wonder?  And, just like that, I prove why we will remain "Great Britain" - we are too easily-diverted by weather-related trivia.  And, if "summer" continues on current form, we must be careful we don't enter next year's Eurovision as "Mediocre Britain"...