THE WEATHER AND BREXIT; IT'S ALL THE SAME.

In Britain, we never seem to be satisfied about the weather. It's always too cold, too wet, too windy or, less often, too hot. Why can't we just accept things and get on with it ?

The wonderful weather we've been experiencing in recent weeks has brought comparisons with the summer of 1976, the last time we had a really long hot, dry spell. Yes, the lack of the usual cloud and rain has brought a few problems but surely the beautiful blue skies and warm days have more than compensated. Perhaps the trouble is that our sensationalist media has been more interested in reporting the associated problems such as threatened hose-pip bans, supposed melted roads and buckled rails, overly hot train carriages and the potential for suffering sunburn or heat stroke. How sad.

Having raised all of these potential nightmares, what has actually happened ? So far, there are no hose-pipe bans in force, although one is still threatened in the North West of the country, and I've certainly heard no more about our roads turning into rivers of tarmac or our railway lines becoming molten masses of metal. I've heard of no vast swarms of people flooding into our hospitals with crispy skin although no doubt a few stupid ones have suffered a bit of dehydration. All in all, none of the threatened disasters have actually befallen us.

What this tells us is that our media love to report things that haven't happened and probably won't happen. They love the sensational stories that attract attention, whatever the truth really is. In this case the truth is that we've had some fantastic weather, albeit unusual and a little uncomfortable at times, but why can't we and the media just celebrate what is, after all, a rare event ? From the point of view of the media, of course, that wouldn't be a story, so it's far better to invent associated horrors, true or not, in order to sell their papers, news feeds, channels and whatever else they do.

I can't help feeling that this coverage of the weather situation has been akin to the government's handling of Brexit. Forget facts, just invent potential nightmare scenarios in order to sell its desired outcome and, ultimately, to get us all to do what we're told. The weather, and its supposedly dreadful effects, is a result of man-made climate change so we must change our bad ways; the horrors that will result from Brexit are of our own making, so we must change our minds.

In the words of Margaret Thatcher "No, No, No !"