Summertime blues

Thunder rolled, lightning struck and streams swelled into rivers and overflowed. Year after year, Glastonbury's aficionados go to great lengths to anticipate the conditions: will it be wellies or sarongs? The enchanted site's legendary mud - or baking fields and a water shortage? This year, it looks like both. And, inevitably, as the sun came out at Glastonbury, so the covers came on at Wimbledon and the picnic hampers went back into car boots at Glyndebourne. Oh the delights of the English summer season!

Thunder rolled, lightning struck and streams swelled into rivers and overflowed. Year after year, Glastonbury's aficionados go to great lengths to anticipate the conditions: will it be wellies or sarongs? The enchanted site's legendary mud - or baking fields and a water shortage? This year, it looks like both. And, inevitably, as the sun came out at Glastonbury, so the covers came on at Wimbledon and the picnic hampers went back into car boots at Glyndebourne. Oh the delights of the English summer season!

No wonder the guests eat too much at Buckingham Palace garden parties. They need to stoke up before risking the journey home. Some 1,000 rail passengers were stranded in the deep countryside this week after power lines failed in the heat. And when all the bottled water was gone from the drinks trolley, they polished off the champagne. That's style.

Back at Glastonbury, it's time for the "silent disco" that won't disturb the neighbours. Time, too, to store memories: the festival is taking next year off. It will leave a hole in the calendar.