Monday 16 July 2012

St Swithun's sign for the 'Nolympics'

We have had an unusually wet summer in England - so far.  Yes - even for England it has been wet, ever since the fateful day when the local authorities and water companies announced that we needed to have a hose-pipe ban -  or for American readers, that's a hose ban.

Since April, we have had the wettest drought on record.  Now as the Olympic games approaches, people around me have actually started hoping that yesterday's weather might be a good sign.  Yes really!

The reason is that yesterday was St Swithun's Day.  There is an tradition in olde-England that if it rains on St Swithun's Day it will rain for 40 days, and if not, then the weather will be much drier. 

I can't speak for the rest of the country, but here in my part of rural Oxfordshire it did not rain.  That is not to say that we had clear skies.  We saw the sun sometimes, but at a few times throughput the day it looked very much as though it was going to pour with rain.

As for me - I don't mind whether it rains through the Olympics or not.  I'm so disgusted at the amount of money squandered on them that I am past caring now.

Rumour has it, that for the amount spent by the UK government on the Olympics, they could have afforded to send everyone in the country to the Bahamas for a two-week holiday. I'm quite sure which option I would have preferred, but nobody asked me for my opinion.

Looking on the bright side:
  • It is the rain that makes England green - I'm happy with that.
  • The cultural benefits of the Olympics are apparently worth the cost.  Yeah - right!
Of course there is a technical term for this old wives tale, as has been shown by the observation that it rained for much of the day today.

Bo***cks!

2 comments:

John Chapman said...

Just think of the money the TV companies will save by showing the Olympics instead of real programming.

Another benefit will be the more interesting blogs available as people turn to their computers in disgust.

Finally a wave of paranoia about terrorism will render the people killed by the Olympic traffic insignificant ...that is, if the traffic can move through the jams.

Derby Sceptic said...

I believe that the TV spending on Olympic coverage is obscene, with more BBC staff than atheletes. Can I demand a refund on my licence fee for the duration of the Olympics as I for one will not be glued to the screen and will probably have to watch obscure channels to avoid the coverage.