Skip to main content

Rain stops play

Image
By

I’ve carried out a long and careful analysis of all available data (well, I’ve looked on twitter for 20 minutes – that counts, right?) and I’ve concluded that we should cancel the rest of 2012.

Who’s in?

Let us consider, in a calm and rational way, why this is a good idea. We’ve had some pretty good stuff this year so far, culminating recently in the Olympics which, much to many people’s surprise, was actually rather splendid (As long as you take George Michael’s new single at the closing ceremony out of the equation). It turns out that we surprised ourselves by quite liking the Queen, during her jubbly year, too (or whatever it was called).

I’ve reached my shocking cancellation conclusion after we suffered yet another rank Bank Holiday weekend in Cumbria, bringing the number of days ruined by excessive precipitation in 2012 to... well, most of them, actually.

What have we got to look forward to for the rest of the year, then..?

Precisely. Not a lot. Except for a load more rain. This last weekend saw Cartmel Races called off, along with many other local events, including the Car Boot Sale in Arnside, the latter dealing a catastrophic blow to those in my village needing to offload ‘Keep Fit With The Green Goddess’ videos, a ghetto blaster from 1989 (mains lead missing), and some rusting tools that no-one really knows what they’re meant to do with them.

Our allotment has been gently rotting away, and whilst I know raspberries are meant to be a little furry in texture, it’s the green mouldy stuff that’s the problem. Even our apple tree has fruit on it that look like ping pong balls, thanks to a lack of sunshine. They may well taste like ping pong balls too, although I won’t be telling you how I know that, but the answer is 4. Frogs, newts and other pond-life seem happy enough to live there too, without the worry of actually needing a pond.

At home, I’ve been collecting large spiders and escorting them from the premises with increasing regularity of late as well. I feel rather sorry for them – they’re just trying to stay dry. I guess wellies would be an expensive option for them though.
Start lobbying your MP now – let’s get the rest of this manky, moist, mouldy year cancelled. Considering winter tends to be fairly unpleasant too, let’s just jump straight to spring 2013, and hope that we actually get something resembling a summer.

To be honest, I’d probably settle for a few weeks of decent weather. My contacts in the trade (I say ‘trade’ – 2 people that work in shops selling cappuccinos) tell me it’s been a hopeless year for them too, so let’s cut our losses eh?

We’ll make it the festive season this weekend, then jump straight to March. Sound good to you?

Happy Christmas!

Have a, last one of the year, good weekend.

If you can.

This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 31st August 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here: "Pull the plug on washout summer", was the title used by the NWEM, and it received only a minor trim of about 40 words this week. What you've got above it the original version - with bonus words for no extra charge!

The column was written prior to (but appeared just after) the Met Office's announcement of it having been the wettest summer for 100 years, along with dullest June for yonks too. I don't think they have official data for 'most depressing and annoying weather for sodding ages', but I expect we've broken that record too...

(My alphabetical trawl through my CD collection has reached Brian May, and his "Furia" soundtrack album. Moody!)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A fisful of change at the shops

By
A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...
2 comments
Read more

Making an exhibition of yourself

By
Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shouting in the social media mirror

By
It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...
Post a Comment
Read more