Weather or not? Not!

I never watch broadcast TV nowadays. I fell for the Sky+ thing and tape everything. I say tape I mean "write to hard disk." The only exception is weather forecasts. The little doctor likes them for some reason.

I find the first ten minutes is a description, with many an arm sweep, of what has already happened and what the weather is now. How is this forecasting? I can get the same information by looking out of the window. One of my more interesting pastimes nowadays as it happens. The last minute or two is the outlook for the week.

I read that someone carried out a survey to compare the statement "It'll be a bit like today" and the official forecast with what really happened. The official forecast came off worst. So why bother? The little doctor likes it because of the ghastly warnings, I think, put there so we can't sue when they don't mention the storm.

It 's all about insurance. Just because we can insure against rain insurance companies have to define what - exactly - rain is.It's a funny old world.