Why I won't be celebrating National Barbecue Week - a celebration that's asking for trouble
By the time you read this, you will probably have heard whoever is presenting the weather forecast – apparently we’re not supposed to call them ‘weathergirls’ any more – wittering on about something called ‘meteorological summer’.
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Which doesn’t exist. Look out of the window. Does it look like summer to you? And if it does, that’s the weather-person’s fault as well.
Because when I checked the forecast a few minutes ago, it said this weekend would be a carnival of overcast mediocrity. A few sunny intervals on Saturday morning giving way to miserable cloud cover, with temperatures barely breaching the 60-degree barrier.
Must be the global warming, obviously.
And the reason it’s not very warm is because summer doesn’t start for another three weeks.
‘Meteorological summer’ is something invented by the Met Office, to break the calendar down into four neat little periods, all starting on the first day of the month.
Which is perfectly reasonable, for internal accountancy purposes.
What I can’t abide is the pomposity of people going on television thinking they have the authority to redefine our seasons.
