Whatever the weather, there is one absolute certainty - if you're British, you'll talk about it. At length. Several times a day. You'll discuss it on the phone - "Hi Dad, what's the weather like with you?". You'll greet people you hardly know in the street with a comment about the heat/rain/wind. You'll text about it. Even write about it in your blog.
It unifies us. You could argue that living on an island in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, our ancestors were a little cut off from the rest of the world and perhaps had little else to talk about, when they weren't battling foreign invaders. But why do we still talk about it so much? In a time when we all know about, but can't discuss the lives of celebrities, perhaps it is all we have left - at least that is until someone puts a super injunction on the MET Office. Imagine that - no forecasts: there'd be a veritable explosion of weather related chatter! How would we know what to wear tomorrow; soft top on or off the car; cricket match on or postponed? All those old sayings, that refer obliquely to the weather without actually specifically mentioning the weather - red sky at night shepherds delight etc - would come back amid a frenzy of amateur weather forecasting. It would be chaos - or it would be all hands together. With the royal wedding and its collective enthusiasm for polite Britishness over, maybe we need a super injunction on something fundamental like the weather to bring the focus back to citizenship, consideration for each other and communication, even if it is just to moan about the rain to our neighbour.
Or I am just being rather silly ... after all, how would I know what to wear to WTD?
It unifies us. You could argue that living on an island in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, our ancestors were a little cut off from the rest of the world and perhaps had little else to talk about, when they weren't battling foreign invaders. But why do we still talk about it so much? In a time when we all know about, but can't discuss the lives of celebrities, perhaps it is all we have left - at least that is until someone puts a super injunction on the MET Office. Imagine that - no forecasts: there'd be a veritable explosion of weather related chatter! How would we know what to wear tomorrow; soft top on or off the car; cricket match on or postponed? All those old sayings, that refer obliquely to the weather without actually specifically mentioning the weather - red sky at night shepherds delight etc - would come back amid a frenzy of amateur weather forecasting. It would be chaos - or it would be all hands together. With the royal wedding and its collective enthusiasm for polite Britishness over, maybe we need a super injunction on something fundamental like the weather to bring the focus back to citizenship, consideration for each other and communication, even if it is just to moan about the rain to our neighbour.
Or I am just being rather silly ... after all, how would I know what to wear to WTD?
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