What weather we're having!

Britain continues to freeze and that's just perfect as we Brits obsess and discuss  the weather continually. It matters not whether the weather is mild with an incoming band of high pressure or floods and ice storms are raging - it all makes for some inconsequential  banter down the pub/launderette/dentist.You know the conversations..." Ooh Elsie, my joints are all stiff again! " , "It's the damp Margaret, I was only saying to Derek last week how damp it's getting. we didn't have damp when I was a girl, it's since them carbon footprints were invented".  You can hear crap like this everywhere in the British Isles all the time. It's great! I say garbage like this continually. We all do. I don't know an Isobar from a Kelvin, but it doesn't matter, it's all in the triviality, the sheer time -wasting joy of it all. What an uplifting thing it is to discover that this part of December is the coldest since records began in 64AD. I made that bit up. It's good to know these things. It's oneupmanship or perhaps one may say oneupwomanship of course in these times of meteorological equality. What better thing to experience on a dark winter's night than to snuggle by an open fire, cat snoozing on the lap, glass of fine malt whisky at hand and to possess that immeasurably calm feeling of smugness that can only be gained from knowing that a strong easterly will pound the coast in the wee hours and most certainly cause minor damage to a neighbours barn - your smugness coming from the fact that you investigated your roof tiles shortly after hearing the news and then made discrete observations and checks to make sure all was right up there whilst he was busy shampooing his Jaguar. Not the animal. Well, you'll be surprised what goes on in Cornwall at dusk.So readers, there you have it in a nutshell. British weather etiquette laid bare. Try it. Go on, don't be shy, cast aside any Victorian feelings of shame and prudishness. Feel liberated, you will not go blind from excessive forecasting. It's a myth. And now the shipping news :  Fisher, German Bight, good to poor, etc, etc................................................