The rain continues unabated so how could I resist clicking a link on the BBC website that said Met Office advice was ‘not helpful’?
On reading the article, though, I find that it refers to ‘not helpful’ to the government. Specifically:
The Met Office has admitted issuing advice to government that was “not helpful” during last year’s remarkable switch in weather patterns.
I am reminded of George Mikes’ comments on the weather in his book How to be an alien; specifically:
English society is a class society, strictly organised almost on corporative lines. If you doubt this, listen to the weather forecasts. There is always a different weather forecast for farmers.
[…]
You must not forget that farmers do grand work of national importance and deserve better weather.
Presumably the government think thay do grand work of national importance and deserve better weather forecasts than the rest of us.
Reading more of the BBC article, I see that the Met Office chief scientist has pointed out that “last year’s calculations were not actually wrong because they were probabilistic.”
One might have hoped that the government had sufficient understanding of numbers and statistics that they wouldn’t need to have this explained to them.
I have never been able to find out where the saying “Bad governments bring bad weather” comes from. Wherever it originated, it seems appropriate to quote it here, though.
As for the second headline – Termites ‘engineer fairy circles’ – I’m afraid it isn’t half such an interesting read as it sounds.
It does, however, provide a tenuous link that gives me an excuse to post this photo of a creature I found drowned in a bucket in the garden a couple of summers ago.
The more prosaic among you might think it’s a praying mantis, but I think it must be a fairy. If she were still alive, my wishes for better weather might be more likely to be heard.
don't confuse the narrator 