Stormy weather

Just when you thought it was safe to plant your vines, cultivate peaches and apricots and get out your bikini for the long hot summers, here comes the latest forecast. Rain, rain and more rain for the next couple of hundred years.

Just when you thought it was safe to plant your vines, cultivate peaches and apricots and get out your bikini for the long hot summers, here comes the latest forecast. Rain, rain and more rain for the next couple of hundred years.

That's not so bad when you think of the great sweep of history. According to the long-range researchers into these questions, periods of intense rainfall in the North Atlantic follow a 3,000-year cycle. The one we're about to enter is only the fifth in 14 millennia.

Which is some reassurance for the Brits who've been moaning about the weather for years. We always knew it was getting worse not better. The person we feel sorry for is the Prime Minister. No point in talking of an indissoluble connection between Britain and America across the Atlantic. The gods are clearly against it.